


The Hale House of Mythical Creatures

by Demimonde (teakturn)



Series: The Hale Home For Mythical Creatures [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alpha Talia Hale, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Claudia Stilinski Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Alive, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Good Peter, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magical Claudia Stilinski, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Pack Family, Pack Feels, Pining Derek, Pre-Slash, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-09 00:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 51,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7780234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teakturn/pseuds/Demimonde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is eight when his mom dies.</p><p>Stiles is eight when his dad drops him off on the Hale's front porch and then leaves him there.</p><p>This is the story of a little lost Spark growing up in a place that might have been made for him all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Still Hurting

**Author's Note:**

> So there's some tags I definitely missed and some people I don't mention but this story if freeform and I have a vague idea of my end game here. So follow me on this journey and let me know what you think.

Stiles doesn't even know why his father is bringing him here.

Aunt Talia isn't even his real aunt. Her and his mom had met in kindergarten like most lifers in Beacon Hills. Staying friends with someone for another 13 years isn't all that hard when you have no other options. Aunt Talia went on to take over the Hale family business, whatever that is, married Uncle James, and expanded the Hale House. She made it clear that she’s gonna stay here forever. 

His mom didn't stay. She left right after high school. Went back to the motherland for a few years before moving to Nevada, where he was born. Where she met his father and they got a small two bedroom apartment together.

He misses the heat. He misses the wide open spaces and cloudless blue skies. He misses weather so hot you could swim at night because the pool is still warm. Summers and Springs and Falls hot enough for icies and pool days and water balloon fights. Cold winters for camping and taking the trailer out into the middle of nowhere for stargazing.

Beacon Hills is like perpetual fall. Dense trees, cloud covered sky, fogs in the early morning until at least eleven, if the view from the motel his dad is renting is to believed. Everything felt too close. There is one long main street that has all the main town attractions and businesses. 

An ancient theater sits next to an old bookstore that sits next to a cafe that’s trying to be a Starbucks stand in but doesn’t have the same corporate sameness of the franchise. There’s a mall, which surprises Stiles. But it isn’t like the malls back home. Large and sprawling and beautiful. This one is just a flat tan square. The newest building in town next to the police station.

Everything looks like it’s been here since before he was born. Since before his father was born. The library and town hall even have ivy growing in a tangled infinite reach upwards and around the once white columns.

He’s used to being in a city, close enough to Vegas and the Strip to make friends with all the different Elvis’ and Marilyns. To get foot long hot dogs for two dollars and watch the gamblers and alcoholics stumble their way into the Nevada heat at nine in the morning.

Beacon Hills is barely a town. He can’t see how he’s expected to survive. He can’t see how his father expected him to survive. How his mother did it, leaves him baffled. His mother had been a city person. She would take him on walks on the busiest days. Piggy back rides through thick throngs of people dressed in sparkly clothes and smelling like rubbing alcohol. Sitting together on a fountain eating ice cream from RiteAid and making up stories for the people passing by.

Not that it matters now. He won’t do any of that ever again. Not with his mom, or without her.

Stiles hadn't even meant to start that fire. No one could even prove he did it, not even his dad. The camera revealed nothing. The official police report blamed faulty wiring. The reason he checked out of school before they could expel him had been to visit “family”.

If you could call Aunt Talia that.

He’s just so.... angry. It isn't fair. Nothing is fair. His mom had been the best. She ate her vegetables and ran in the park. She did everything everyone said a healthy person should do and she still got sick. And the doctors barely tried to save her! Just thinking about it makes his palms itch, and the back of his neck grow hot.

A cool, dry hand settles on top of his freshly shorn scalp, immediately calming him and reminding him of where he was. He cranes his neck against the weight on his head and looks up at his dad.

John Stilinski stares with narrowed eyes at the looming house in front of them. He may have insisted that Stiles be on his best behavior once they arrived, but when faced with the huge Georgian house, he seems just as apprehensive.

The house is painted a cheery yellow. At some point in the last century. Now it looks washed out, less of a canary and more daffodile like. It looms above the two Stilinski men, three stories high and capped with a dark grey hipped roof. A half round, sunburst pediment drew your eye to the four columns around the small porch. And the half washed off chalk proclaiming that this is the Hale House.

It looks like a house out of a Jane Austen novel. Furthering this image is the fact that the house itself sat on a large clearing on the very edge of town, surrounded by woods that the Hale’s themselves owned. There’s a leaf covered trail leading out of the woods and on the road into town. The same one that Stiles and his dad had just came down. But this place is as secluded as it gets.

There are several cars on the stone driveway. A sleek and modern station wagon, what looks like a Buick and a minivan had a baby, and then a really old Camry that looks close to death. 

On the yard itself, there are several bikes ranging from toddlers on trikes to elementary school kids still using training wheels, and adults who liked to ride for fun. There is a skateboard, a toy plastic kitchen set that’s seen better days, and tons of toys scattered all around.

Despite not being able to see into the curtained windows, Stiles can tell that it’s packed on the inside. Any hope that there will be any room for him at all is dashed immediately. Not that he wants to be here anyway. He’s perfectly fine driving back with his dad in the UHaul and going to their apartment in Vegas.

He may not have any friends there anymore, but it’s better to be a loser around people you know than be the new loser around people you don’t. His father won’t understand that though. He thinks it will be better for him to be around people like him, like the Hales, like his mom, than to be stuck with a human in Nevada.

Not that Stiles cares. He’s already lost his mom, he’s terrified of losing his dad. He doesn’t know if Aunt Talia even wants him here, or if she’s doing it because of who his mom is-was.

As if she had read his mind, Talia Hale opens the dark front door, and stands in the doorway. She’s just as he remembers her. Tall, although everyone’s tall to an eight year old. Dark brown hair like his mom’s, although Aunt Talia had darker skin, and more freckles. She usually wore her hair down while Stiles’ mom often had her’s pinned up with whatever she could get her hands on. Pencils, Chopsticks, butter knives, etc.

Unlike his mom, Aunt Talia is actually here, and seeing her made his chest ache fiercely. They hardly ever visited, but when they did it was Stiles and his mom on a roadtrip in her old Jeep. He ate Twizzlers and drank Coke at breakfast, and then when they got here Aunt Talia would pretend to be mad at them ‘cause of all the junk food. 

Uncle James would make a big breakfast and they’d all it at the huge dark wooden table that Uncle Peter would boast about cutting down with his bare hands. And the best part of the trip was when they’d leave. Playing with his cousins was nice and all but driving back with his mom was the best. She used let him sit in her lap and pretend to drive when the highway was empty.

There would be no more road trips anymore. There was nowhere to visit, nowhere to go home to.

 

John Stilinski waves one hand at Talia, and she answers with a polite nod, but they both know she’s waiting for the boy. They’ve never felt animosity towards one another, but it had always been a competition for Claudia since the beginning. If he thought about it for too long, he comes to the conclusion that Talia’s won. She got Stiles. 

The last piece of their girl in the entire world.

His time with his son is up, he knows, but he can’t help but tighten his grip on his boy nonetheless. First he loses his wife, and now his son. He could fight this, has tried to fight this, but the end result is the same. Stiles takes after his mother, and John is not in a position to give him the stability he needs. As Alpha, Talia knows exactly how to raise a young Spark, especially after growing up with one.

After years of soothing aches, kissing owies, and being the protector against the monsters in his son’s closet, John has to admit he can’t protect him now. And it hurts. Holy fuck, does it hurt. But Claudia wanted it this way. And he couldn’t save her, couldn’t be there for her in her final moments. But he will fulfil her final wish.

When he looks at his son, all he sees is his wife. Doe eyes and lashes that just take your breath away. And his eyes! Claudia through and through, amber brown like honey, big and curious and intelligent all at once. Every mole and errant freckle on his kid’s pale skin is like a map back to his wife. The upturned nose, the cupid’s bow above his lips. The same lips that used to wrap around his thumb and gum away at them back when he was teething.

If his son got anything from his it hadn’t been his looks. His Spark wasn’t the only thing he got from his mom. And now he has to be a good father and husband. He has to do what’s best for his boy, and honor the promise he made to his wife. Even if it kills him.

John lowered himself to one knee, and turned Stiles to face him. The boy was scowling, all he’s done since they got here, so he wasn’t perturbed. He could see it was all for show. The boy missed his mother, and now he felt like his father was leaving him too.

“You’re gonna live with Aunt Tally, Stiles. And I’m gonna go back to Nevada. But y-you can call me everyday, okay?” he can feel himself getting choked up, he can feel the tears threatening to fall. But his son is such a martyr, such an inherently good kid that he knows that if he sees his father cry, he’ll try to put on a brave face. And if that didn’t remind him of Claudia….

“I don’t want to. You need me dad, who’s gonna take care of you if I leave? Mom isn’t-”

“Stiles,” John sighs. He can feel where this is going, and he hates it. He hates that he’s the cause of his son’s anguish. He’s only eight and he’s already been through too much. None of which he could protect him from.

As much as he tried.

“Why are you leaving me! You said it was just us-” Stiles yells, tears falling fat and heavy along pale cheeks. Cheeks that were rapidly turning red, not just from emotion, but from his power. His Spark.

“Stiles!” John tries to gather his son’s attention, but the boy isn’t having it. He yanks himself out of his father’s reach, crying and vibrating and turning scarlet and then crimson in his anger. His little body heating up the point of sending his clothes, already worn and filled with holes, smoking.

“You weren’t there! You said you’d be there for us and you weren’t. And now you’re leaving me! You’re leaving!” flames erupted as Stiles’ grief and misery crescendoed. 

John warily swayed backwards, losing his balance in his hurry to run from the full force of his son’s power. Talia, however, was already on the scene. She swooped into Stiles’ line of vision, and placed claw tipped fingers onto his shoulders.

She did not escape the heat of the flames unscathed, her skin burned and healed and burned over and over again. But Talia didn’t let it show on her face. She tried to soothe him, speaking in warm, firm but hushed tone that John couldn’t hear over the rapid beating of his own heart.

Stiles did not seem to be calming down, he wasn’t getting progressively worse though, so there was that. He seemed to actually be listening to what Talia was saying, which John counted as a win in the were’s ledger. Stiles doesn’t listen to anybody. Especially after Claudia got sick.

After a few minutes of silent conversation, Stiles closes his eyes and nods once. His clothes are singed, and on their way to basically unwearable. His skin has yet to return to it’s usual color. So John readied himself to interfere, not trusting Talia to know how to get the boy back completely when she surprised him.

She placed a delicate kiss to Stiles’ still smoking and crimson red forehead and then whispered, “It’s alright, _Genim_. I know.”

She said it with such power, such confidence and warmth, that even the hardened veteran turned cop found himself soothed. Stiles immediately returned to his rightful color, and looked ready to pass out and sleep for a week. Without hesitation, Talia scooped up the exhausted child, and then turned to start walking back to the house.

“Goodbye John. I have this covered. I will call you when I feel like he’s more settled.” 

It’s a dismissal if he’s ever heard one, and for a second the weary father and widow feels righteous anger course through his veins. Stiles is _his_ son. John was there for all his firsts, John was there the day he was born. He lost his wife and his son all in the same year and he’d have liked just a _minute_ to say goodbye. To promise his son that this wouldn’t be really goodbye, not forever.

But Talia didn’t pause as she walked into the house, and then a second later James was outside with keys and a sympathetic look on his face. “I’ll follow you to the motel, pick up Stiles’ things.”

John nodded in a daze. “Will I be able to say goodbye at least? Leave my number so he knows that he can call me at any time?”

From the way James winces and looks back towards the house, John already has his answer. He walks over to his rental, and gets in with mechanical movements. He drives to the motel, watches as James lifts and hooks up the UHaul without any help needed from John, and then drives away.

James promises though, to talk to Talia. She feels that a clean break would be best for Stiles. No contact until he recognizes that this is home now and that’s how things are going to be from now on. “It shouldn’t take too long”, he promises.

John Stilinski never hears from his son again.


	2. Stay Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note, I have played with the ages of everyone in this story. Peter is closer to his age in the series and Derek and Stiles are two years apart.

Stiles asks about his father a month into his stay at the Hale House. He waited patiently for his dad to call him, and then asked Talia to let him call him on his own. But the number she told him to use was disconnected, and when they call the station they tell him his dad is no longer on the force. Talia promises to look into it for him and let him know what she finds, but she never tells him why he has to stay with her in the first place.

He’s not used to a house so big, or one filled with so many people. His mom and dad said that an apartment was perfect for their little family, and anything bigger would cost an arm and a leg in Las Vegas. He was used to a dining room and a living room being the same room, a kitchen separated by a wall with a window in it so he could watch his mom cooking dinner.

At the Hale house everything is big and sturdy and kinda old. Peter tells him it’s because the family has built and rebuilt the house over and over again for almost two hundred years. It has to be big, because it has to be able to hold the entire pack. Everything comes back to that in the end. Is it good for the pack? Does it endanger the pack. He learns pretty quickly that pack means family, and family is the most important thing.

He struggles with that more than anything. Because he had a family. How is he supposed to just be a part of a new family? You only get one family, no second chances.

Talia makes him go out into the woods with Peter and his twins, Emmaline and Ellarie, and Cora for magic practice. They can’t go to school this year because the twins are five and just use their powers willy nilly and Cora wolfs out whenever she gets a little upset. So Peter, as the Alpha's second, has to teach them control. The town may know about werewolves and other supernatural beings, but no one was allowed to use their nature as an excuse to misbehave. That meant no more fire related accidents for him, no more shifting for Cora, and the twins had to reign in their magic. To protect the pack.

It's always about the pack.

And it’s not like he really hated the lessons. Peter is Stiles’ favorite uncle. He talks to him like an adult and teaches him cool pranks to pull on Derek. He has all these cool books in weird languages that he promises to teach him one day. Peter’s an adult, but still like one of the kids. Which makes him more bearable than Aunt Talia and infinitely more bearable than Derek.

Derek’s the weirdest of his cousins, always frowning and stuttering. Laura’s pretty cool, but she’s twelve and doesn’t really like spending time with him too much. Cora is his age and hilarious, but sometimes she’s too rough and Stiles loses his temper and then it’s up to Aunt Talia and Uncle James to calm them down. But she’s probably his favorite person in the house. Aside from Peter.

The twins are five and don’t do much. They follow him and Cora when they’re playing, and sometimes they make butterflies appear in the kitchen and grow flowers between the pages of books, but Peter says it's all accidental and he’ll be able to that himself one day.

Kieran and Katherine, Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Anna’s kids, are new, like Stiles. They’re both dark haired and light eyed, like most of the Hales and they’re werewolves. Like most of his aunts and uncles and Laura, Derek, and Cora. He doesn’t quite know what he is exactly.

Aunt Talia says he’s a Spark, like his mom. Allegra, the only adult that’s not a werewolf and also not human, says he’s a mage. She says he’s like her and the twins, and that once he learns control, she can teach him everything there is to know about being a mage.

Stiles tries not to like them for the longest time. He know’s his dad didn’t like Talia all too much and that Talia felt the same way about him. So he tried to not like her too. It was the only thing he had left of his dad now, his dislike of Talia Hale. Liking her, even if he couldn't help liking everyone else, felt like a betrayal.

He’d disobey her when she told him to do something. Ignore her when she talked to him. Run out into the woods and hide when he knew she would want to talk to him about his behavior. Peter is the one who finds him when he does that. He laughs at what he does, tells him that he’s a clever kid, using the fact that he isn’t a werewolf against the Alpha. But he also tells him that this won’t last long, and Talia is patient, but not a pushover.

His behavior officially gets him in trouble with Talia four months after his dad dropped him off with the Hale’s.

He’s running through the woods with Kieran and Katherine and they’re nearing that part of the Preserve that separates Hale property from the rest of the Preserve. They’re not supposed to be this close to the line. In fact, they’re not supposed to be this far out in the Preserve. Kieran and Katherine may be wolves, but they’re babies. Their senses aren’t yet strong enough to get them home when it get’s dark.

And boy does it get dark out in the Preserve. One second there’s a pale blue cast to the sky, everything looks foggy and unreal and fuzzy around the edges. It makes their game of hide and seek that much more fun. The feeling of hunting and being hunted heightening until their all dizzy from the adrenaline rush. The next, it's pitch black. Everything's only just barely lit by the stars and the moon. The trees look sinister now and every shadow is a root or branch looking to trip you up.

They all know that they went too far. The woods don't feel like home anymore, they don't feel like pack. Kieran and Katherine suffer it the most, whining under the weight of just how _wrong_ they feel this far out. They know, without a doubt, that Talia is going to be furious if they don't get back soon.

There’s two non negotiable rules at the Hale house. Protect the Pack, and don’t go off the Hale Property.

Stiles hadn’t yet learned that last one though, and even if he had, he couldn’t honestly say if he would have heeded it or not. He was just so _angry_. He didn’t have his mom, he didn’t have his dad, and he couldn’t figure out why or who to blame. So he blamed Talia and he blamed Beacon Hills. He had no way of processing that anger except in retaliation, in misbehaving.

So when he neared the Preserve and that invisible line he wasn’t supposed to pass, he ran across it anyway.

Kieran and Katherine stopped at the divide in an almost comical way, tripping over their feet and sliding through the loam and fallen leaves. Their senses were still weak, being so young, but even they knew they couldn’t-shouldn’t- cross that line. They looked at Stiles with wide, fearful eyes. Their range of emotion was limited in Beta shift, but you couldn’t mistake the look in their eyes.

“Shtilesh, we can be over there!” Kieran slurred around fangs too big for his mouth. Katherine cast Beta gold eyes around the forest, and they all noticed how terribly dark it had gotten.

Before he could say anything, a howl sounded throughout the forest. Katherine and Kieran winced and bowed under the weight of the call, and cast another pleading look at Stiles.

“We gotta go! That was the Alpha.” Katherine began tugging on her brother’s hand, and reached the other one out to Stiles. She still wouldn’t cross the barrier and for a moment, to an eight year old, the distance seemed impossible.

He couldn’t go back to the Hale house. His dad wasn’t there. His mom wasn’t there. He was just an add on to an already complete family. A puzzle piece taken from a broken puzzle and then added to one that already had all it’s pieces. He didn’t belong.

Stiles cast one more look over at his cousins, then looked behind him at the looming neverending forest. It was dark and uninviting, but it had to be better than going back to the Hale’s. It had to be.

Katherine saw his decision before he even moved, her eyes flashed back to their normal green in betrayal. Then, without a word, her gaze hardened and she let out an ear splitting howl. Alerting their pack and no doubt signalling to the Alpha just where they were.

“Why would you do that!” Stiles crows indignantly. He glares at Katherine and she glares right back.

“You can’t leave Stiles, you’re pack!” She yells.

Stiles shakes his head, “I’m nobody.”

And then he takes off, running into the black heart of the forest, running away from the Hales.


	3. Stay Alive (Reprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this hasn't been edited at ALL. So I'm sorry. All mistakes are my own.

Stiles runs until the howls of the pack are as faint as bird calls. He runs until he’s gasping for air and he’s standing in a clearing with the largest tree he’s ever seen in his life. It hums with power, thick as a car in width tall enough that he could lay on his back among the dead leaves and roots and still not see the top.

He can’t bring himself to get closer, it doesn’t seem right. He doesn’t have permission. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows he needs permission before he can get closer. But he can’t run anymore. His chest hurts and his legs feel like jello. So Stiles sits, criss cross applesauce the way his mom taught him, and he basks in the glow of the moon.

He sits like that until a body, Peter, sits wearily next to him. Stiles can still hear the heavy panting, feel the warmth coming off his uncle in waves from his run. Peter doesn’t say anything though. He doesn’t yell at him and he doesn’t try to make him feel bad. He just sits with him, regulates his breathing, and stares at the tree.

It’s ten minutes later that Stiles finds the courage to ask the question nipping at his mind. “What is that?” he says softly.

When he looks up at his uncle, Peter is already looking down at him with a fond look on his face, “That’s the Nemeton. It protects us.”

“I thought Aunt Talia protects us.” Stiles says. He’s staring at the tree again, trying to wrap his young mind around the fact that a tree is the thing keeping him safe. He wonders if it ever knew his mom.

“Talia protects pack, family, those seeking asylum. But the Nemeton protects everyone else. The Nemeton keeps order.” Peter answers softly.

Stiles nods, and then shivers. Uncle James had told them to get their coats before going out, but he’d also been busy helping Derek and Laura untangle their claws from one another with minimal damage. Slipping out of the backdoor without a coat hadn’t been all that hard since all the adults were watching and laughing at his cousin's expense.

Peter places his jacket, Stiles’ jacket, around his shoulders without a word. And just like that Stiles felt very foolish with his running away trick. He hadn’t gone anywhere, not really. He was still in the Preserve, still in Beacon Hills. He lived with Aunt Talia now, so if anyone found him they wouldn’t take him back to Vegas, they just take him back to her.

And he _liked_ the Hale’s now. He admired their family, admired the pack, and he was jealous of it. Because Stiles remembered having that. He hadn’t known it then, but what he had with his mom and dad was just like pack. Everyone took care of each other and loved each other. 

The Hales were trying to do that for him. They weren’t trying to replace his mom and dad, they didn’t want him to forget his old life. But they were trying to make him pack, they were trying to make him family. Everyone had accepted him the moment Aunt Talia walked him through that door. It was him, that had a hard time letting them in.

“Uncle Peter,” Stiles began, “Why did my dad leave me here? Why did he give me away?”

He looked up at the older man searching his eyes in the low light, looking for that security and safety he hadn’t seen since his dad. Peter placed a large, warm hand on his shoulder, and looked back into his eyes just as deeply.

“You’re father loves you very much, but when your mother got sick, he began to drink. I like you Stiles, so I’m not gonna sugarcoat this for you like I would with the other kids.” Peter warned. When Stiles nodded to show he was ready, Peter began again.

“Your father was a drunk. He’d lost his job soon after your mom died, and he had no way to take care of you since he was so deep in the bottle. Your mother and Talia had a plan, that should anything happen to her, you and your father would come to live with us in Beacon Hills.”

Stiles frowned, he hadn’t known that. His mom had been sick for a long time he knew, he’d been sick when she had her first nosebleed. Around his either birthday they’d hoped she would go into remission. He had wished for her to go into remission. He hadn’t known that already knew she was leaving him.

“Then why did my dad have to leave? Why did Aunt Talia turn him away?” Stiles demanded. 

Peter sighed but he didn’t break eye contact with the boy, “Because your father refused to stop drinking. If he was going to stay here and be pack, he needed to be a father to you and contribute to the household. He couldn’t do that if he was at the bottom of a bottle.”

Stiles felt himself growing angry, the itch in his palms and the heat on the back of his neck rising immediately. He had to defend his father, he had too. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Aunt Talia said she was looking for his dad. If she found him, then he could come be pack too. Aunt Talia shouldn’t have turned him away.

“I thought Aunt Talia was supposed to protect pack! If you got drunk all the time would she take Emma and Ella away from you?” the eight year old demanded. He was smouldering, a faint burnt leaf smell wafting faintly off his skin. If the wolf smelled it, he didn’t say anything.

“Talia would have to move heaven and earth to take my children away from me,” Peter said darkly.

For the first time, Stiles found himself actually afraid of his uncle. All out once, the heat fled out of him. The leaves around him were still smoking softly, but neither the boy nor man paid attention to it. Peter focused on rubbing the hot spot on the back of Stiles’ neck, and Stiles tried to tamp down the irrational fear he had of his uncle just then.

Peter would never hurt him. Stiles was probably his favorite nephew. Stiles was safe.

But he still couldn’t understand why Aunt Talia hadn’t tried to save his dad. When Aunt Anna lost her job, and had to move back into her childhood home with her sister and her kids, Aunt Talia said nothing. Aunt Talia opened the doors to her little sister with open arms, and didn’t question when Aunt Anna would start looking for work.

But his dad was drinking, after losing his wife, and she wouldn’t even let him stay until he got back on his feet.

“Stiles,” Peter said softly. He waited until Stiles looked him in the eye before saying, slowly and with heavy meaning, “John Stilinski isn’t pack. Claudia was pack, you’re pack. But John would never have accepted Talia as his Alpha, he would have never been comfortable here. He would have ruined himself with grief, and you would have had to watch yet another parent waste away.”

Stiles pouted and leaned into his Uncle's’ side. Wrapping an arm around the much bigger man doesn’t help the ache in his chest or the cold seeping into his bones, so he squeezes closer. He squeezes until his arms hurt and then tries to squeeze even closer. Peter holds him back tightly, but more gently.

“How did she know he wouldn’t get better? Why did she get to decide?” Stiles asks into Peter’s chest.

Peter runs a large hand along Stiles’ back in a soothing, hypnotic pattern. “She’s the Alpha,” he says softly, “It’s her job to think about what’s best for the back. She couldn’t have known, not for certain, that John wouldn’t have gotten over his alcoholism. But she did know he would have never accepted her as his Alpha.”

Just to be contrary Stiles says, “I never accepted her. I don’t listen to her.”

Peter laughs, and runs his chin along the top of his head. Scenting, Stiles realizes. He’s being scented. The other wolves did it to each other all the time. Never to Stiles though. At first, it was because he wouldn’t let anyone get close. He was on a hunger strike in his room and refused to talk to anyone that first week.

Even when he eventually joined the rest of the household, everyone still kept their distance from the angry eight year old who could set things on fire if he wasn’t careful. He would watch them, scenting one another and looking happy and whole, and he’d feel bitter.

He was still that awkward puzzle piece. He still didn’t fit.

“You belong here Stiles.” Peter says as answer, and Stiles understands immediately.

When he releases his tight hold on Peter, he turns back to look at the tree. The Nemeton. He understands immediately why his mother wanted him here. 

“What do you feel Stiles,” Peter asks softly, “What is it telling you?”

Stiles focuses the way Peter taught him, and he reaches towards the fire settled low in chest. He pushes gently, tugging it towards the tree and the calming hum it’s emitting. He hadn’t even realized it was doing that, that it was reaching out to him. Now he can’t not notice. It’s so loud.

“It’s telling me not yet. I don’t have permission.” He frowns and turns back towards his Uncle, “Where do I go to get permission?”

Peter smirks, and Stiles immediately knows his uncle is gonna spout some cryptic bullshit. Thankfully, a howl, this one nearer and angrier sounding than any howl Stiles has ever heard before, cuts him off at the quick.

With a roll of his eyes, Peter rises to his feet, taking Stiles with him. With some awkward yet practiced maneuvering, Peter manages to get Stiles settled on his neck. On the walk back, Peter tells him to pretend to go to sleep. It’ll save him from Talia’s wrath for the night. By tomorrow he’ll figure out a way to lessen his punishment.

Stiles is thankful but he doesn’t know how to show it. So he does it in the only way he knows how. He mushes his hair in the dark wavy strands of Peter’s hair, and swings his face back and forth. Messing up it’s neat arrangement, and earning a light scratch from a claw for his efforts.

It’s a halfhearted at best and Stiles understands that it’s out of mutual affection. He knows that they’ve passed back into Hale territory because the tightness in Peter’s shoulders loosens quite suddenly. His suspicions are confirmed when he hears the sound of yipping wolves and smells the sound of Uncle James’ stress baking.

He follows Peter’s advice and plays sleep, but he knows that in a family of wolves he’s not really fooling anyone. Derek, the big mouth, is the first one he hears when Peter starts making his way into the house.

“Can’t believe we’re going through all this fuss over-Ow!” 

Stiles knows, in the same way he knows Aunt Talia is gonna be furious with him no matter what Peter does, that Laura was the one to smack Derek. It made him feel...warm, to know that she would hit Derek when he was being a dick to him.

He still felt like a lost puzzle piece, but with his new knowledge, he was slowly finding his place in the Hale Family puzzle.


	4. Lost Boy(s)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be several time jumps by the way. I will always let you know when one has passed though so don't worry.

When Stiles first meets Scott McCall, he’s ten years old and kicking Derek’s ass on the gaming system his cousin got for Christmas that year. Cora sits on the couch with him, cheering him on and helping him by taking random clawed strikes at Derek to get him to mess up. Kat and Kiere are at his feet, waiting to play the winner.

It’s a common scene in the Hale household this winter break. Only one not here is Laura, but that’s because she’s with Aunt Talia learning how to be an Alpha. Apparently the new Sheriff and his family are coming into town today. As the town Alpha, Talia has to greet all important town figures so they could all be in the loop about the goings on in Beacon Hills.

Stiles wasn’t all that sure how it worked, but he knew he kinda didn’t like it since it meant Peter had to go to and Peter promised to help him brush up on his Polish after lunch.

So the youngest Hales (minus the twins napping upstairs) were all sitting and cheering and playing when the McCall family walked in. Aunt Talia often did business at the Hale house, being on her territory made her feel stronger and like she was protecting the pack better, so none of the kids even stopped to gape. But the McCall family stood frozen in the entryway to the living room at the sight.

Melissa McCall wasn’t very tall or short, medium height with a slight build. She had a kind face and pretty curly brown hair. If one were to line all the Hales up and put her in the line, she’d fit right in. She had a shocked look on her face, whether from all the children in a known household of werewolves or the obvious human playing among them, it was hard to tell. She still smiled and introduced herself and her son. When she turned to introduce her husband, he had already followed Talia into the study without a word.

She looked like a kid abandoned in a grocery store, trying to be brave in the face of an uncomfortable situation, but eagerly awaiting the return of someone familiar. Her son, Scott, was watching the many Hale kids playing quite enviously. He was slight, with brown skin reminiscent of butterscotch candies and dark eyes. His hair was growing too long, overdue for a haircut no doubt, and it fell in his eyes when he looked at his mom for permission to play with the other kids.

Melissa seemed torn, the Sheriff wasn’t there for her to defer to, and all the adults of the household were nowhere to be seen. She looked ready to say no, pull her son into her arms and turn them back into the foyer to await the patriarch of their family, but Stiles stopped her.

In the time it took her to introduce herself and Scott, Stiles had whooped Derek into the next century and decided he was done playing the game. Knowing his cousins, he knew none of them wanted to give up playing the game to play outside with him so he turned towards Scott.

“Wanna go walk the meadow?” Stiles asked bluntly. He didn’t see the point in introducing himself, if Scott didn’t get on with the Hales, Stiles would probably never interact with him again. 

Scott again looked towards his mother for permission and Melissa, not seeing a reason to say no, simply warned Scott to be careful and not to go too far.

 

Which is what led to Stiles showing Scott all the tricks he knew with his magic. He showed him how to make fire dance. Showed him how to make the flowers grow so thick they got a headache from the pungent floral aromas. Showed him how to make small clouds that let out small flurries of snow that melted before even settling on their skin.

Some of this he learned from his Aunt Allegra, once he finally had enough control of his abilities from his sessions with Peter. The rest he learned from the books Peter left around for him to find. Apparently Talia didn’t want him learning all the dangerous things in those books, but Peter believed that knowledge was one of the most powerful weapons a person could have. So he circumvented his sister by “accidentally” leaving the books out where Stiles could find them.

Scott loved all of it, played in the snow with him, made sweet smelling flower swords with him, danced around heatless plumes of flames until he had to take a few frantic puffs from his inhaler. He thought it was so cool that he was living with the Hales. He especially thought it was cool there were so many kids to play with. Scott was an only child too, but he didn’t have the benefit of a dozen cousins to make up for it.

Stiles finds it strange that Scott never asks where his parents are, never asks why he looks so different from the Hale’s, dark hair and amber eyes notwithstanding. To pay back the guy he thinks might be his new friend, he doesn’t ask about how scared Melissa looked when Scott’s dad left the room. He didn’t ask about the bruises he could see poking out under his long sleeve Hot Wheels shirt.

They didn’t ask any questions, just played and showed off, and ran in the meadow until Stiles heard the telltale call of Aunt Talia’s howl calling him into the house. At Scotts confused and fearful look, Stiles laughed and wrapped an arm around the smaller boy.

“Don’t worry, that’s just Aunt Talia. It’s how she communicates with the pack when we’re far off. You don’t have to be scared.” Scott nods, and lets himself be walked up the gently sloping hill towards the Hale house.

“But you aren’t a wolf right? Do you still have to listen to it?” Scott queried in a small voice.

Stiles shrugged, “Not really no. But I’m pack, and Talia’s the Alpha, so I have to listen.”

“But why?” Scott insisted, “Why do you have to listen to her?”

Stiles stopped and turned to look at Scott, to really look at him. Earlier, when they’d been playing about in the meadow, Scott had been all dimples and gently wheezing giggles. Now he had an innocent but persistent curiosity plastered across his face. Stiles wants to explain it, why he listens to Talia when he’s not a wolf, but it’s not all that simple.

Part of it, is because he has no one else. He’s long since come to terms with the fact that his father wasn’t coming back for him. He’s still angry about it, ‘cause his dad promised and it’s Talia’s fault he’s not here in the first place. But what started off as him being the odd man out in a large, tight knit family, turned into something else.

Peter is his uncle, and when he pauses to think past all the pranks and teasing, Laura and Cora are like his older sisters. Kat and Kieran are his best running buddies even though their a whole grade below him, and the twins are important to him. Sometimes he’s endlessly angry at Talia. An all consuming anger that has no place in a boy as young as he is. 

And other times he trusts her to scare the monsters in his closet, to yell at his teachers who treat him different because of his ADHD. He trusts his Uncle James to make him soup when he’s sick. He trusts Aunt Anna and Aunt Allegra to help him with his magic and drive him to school.

He’s a Stilinski in name and spirit, but he’s also a Hale. He’s as apart of the family as Cora or Katherine. He listens to Aunt Talia not just because she’s an adult and the Alpha of the pack, but because he’s his aunt and she only has his best interests at heart. But how do you communicate that to someone who isn’t in the loop?

Scott knows about werewolves, and what Stiles is, but he’s still human. He doesn’t understand pack. If Stiles says he listens to Talia because she’s the Alpha, even though that isn’t all of it and he isn’t a wolf, Scott just wouldn’t understand. And for some reason, Stiles feels like it’s very important that Scott understands. 

Stiles shrugs one last time before pulling Scott up the rest of the hill, careful to go slow because of his friends’ asthma. He tries to convince Scott to ask his mom if they can stay for dinner. James always makes enough to feed a football team so there’d be room for three extra’s, but his dad is there ready to go the second they get on the back porch.

After stiffly thanking Talia for meeting with him and going through the usual courtesies between a werewolf-human meeting with Peter and Laura, he hurriedly rushed his tiny family out of the house. No sooner had Uncle Jeremy shut the door after them, had Talia growled low under her breath and wiped the hand that Mr. McCall shook off on her pants.

“I do not like that man.” She growled lowly.

Stiles nodded once and then heeded Talia’s order to go wash up for dinner. He asks, later on while Talia and the rest of the adults are doing the nightly tucking in routine, if Scott can come over again. His voice is low and hoarse with the sleep he’s valiantly fighting off, but he knows that Talia hears him. Even over the twins’ bathtime hysteria and Laura insisting she’s too old to be tucked in.

Talia doesn’t answer him just yet, instead goes through their regular routine. Each adult has a different way of saying goodnight, Stiles found out, and they do something different for each little Hale.

Talia checks the windows and closets, looks under beds and ensures that night lights are plugged in and the bulb isn’t in danger of going out. For Stiles, she tells him a story about his mom once she’s done her checks. It was the only way he’d let her in his room when he first came here. It was the beginning of their truce.

Uncle James and Uncle Jeremy sing a song; a lullaby for the twins, Elvis for Laura and Derek, the Beatles for Kat and Kiere, and an old Gaelic hymn for Cora. Stiles had looked at them like they were crazy when they asked him if he wanted a song before bed, but after an especially vivid nightmare, he worked up the courage to get them to sing an old Fleetwood Mac song. It had been his mom’s favorite.

Aunt Anna and Aunt Allegra gave them a “talisman”, a magical object to protect them while they slept and keep away nightmares. It was something different each night, and every Sunday without fail whatever talisman the kids received that week mysteriously disappeared before being replaced with something new the following Monday.

Uncle Peter usually poked his head into the room and gave it a good once over, but for Cora and Stiles and the twins (his unofficial favorites in the house) he read them a story. Something scary and bloody for Cora. Tales of battles and the like. The twins liked fairy tales, they’re favorite being the story of the Wolf and the Witch. Which Stiles knew was a romanticization of how Peter and Allegra met.

Stiles and Peter usually practiced what language they’d been learning that day. Currently, they were on Polish, although occasionally Peter will throw in French and Spanish. Just to see if Stiles is keeping up with his studies.

The Hales were weird like that. Nightly rituals, breakfast traditions, strange holiday’s that Stiles had been sure only his mother practiced. The Solstices’ were insanity at the Hale house. Relatives from different packs in different territories came from all over. If the Hale house was flooded on an everyday basis, Winter and Spring Solstice were nightmares.

Hysteria and pandemonium in the form of food, too much food, and a party. Food that left leftovers for weeks. Music and games and noise. Stiles had never been happier than when Uncle Jeremy makes _latkes_ and the Russian Hale’s brought _khvorost_ and _pashka_. The Hale’s who come up from their territory in the desert always bring _empanada’s_ and hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Stiles had always wondered how the Hale house held them all, just their family alone, but Peter said it best. The house had been built to take care of the pack, no matter how big or small.

Stiles almost thinks Talia has forgotten his request when she finishes her sweep of the room and begins checking that he has all his blankets. As the most vulnerable human, winter is especially hard on him. So he needs tons more blankets than the rest of the family.

He opens his mouth to ask again when Talia sighs and runs a hand through her hair, “Scott is a good boy, I’m glad you’ve taken a shine to him. But his father…” she shakes his head and shoots him a stern look.

“I don’t want you getting it into your head to ask James after me. Or Peter. I’m not saying no, but I am saying not yet. Once I figure out what kind of man Rafael McCall is, I feel better about letting him around the pack.”

When Stiles nods silently, she shoots him another suspicious look. He acquiesced too quickly, but now it was too late for him to take it back and pout like she expected him to. So he forces a yawn, and it must be convincing enough because the suspicion bleeds out of her face immediately. With one last securing tug at his blankets, she ruffles his hair and leaves the room.

Aunt Allegra and Aunt Anna come in once she’s gone with a dried out apple core wrapped in baking sheets and soaked in peppermint oil. When he breathes in the smell of the thing he feels like he buried in nose in a feather boa. After kissing him on the forehead, they deposit the talisman at the foot of his bed.

By the time Uncle Jeremy and James have finished their song and Peter’s taken their place, he has a half formed scheme in his head. Peter sits in a chair brought up from the library downstairs and takes his usual place next to Stiles’ bed. He tries to open the conversation with French, a probing question about his day with the McCall boy.

Stiles swats it away and answers instead in Polish, “ _I want to hang out with him but Aunt Talia is being difficult._ ”

Peter purses his lips in thought, and casts his calculating gaze out the window while he thinks. There are certain rooms in the house that are soundproofed for privacy. Bathrooms, the study, the atrium where Aunt Allegra and Aunt Anna do most of their work and where Stiles gets most of his magic lessons. 

The children’s bedrooms are not one of them, hence Stiles starting off this conversation with Peter in Polish.

Aunt Talia knows a lot of languages, mostly for pack relations. But she doesn’t know Polish beyond greetings and a few curse words she slips into when she has to yell at Stiles in his full name. Which is pretty often.

It’s not like when he first moved here, when he was doing any and everything to annoy or otherwise undermine Talia. This was more because he was too curious for his own good and smart enough to understand how to get around silly things like parental permission and snitching cousins. Derek and Kieran were like double agents among the kids. Happy to play but also happy to rat out Stiles (and Cora more often than not) should his plans go against a direct order.

And although Aunt Allegra and Aunt Anna were likely more often than not to turn a blind eye to his exploits, he knew that the only adult he good go to for advice about how to get Scott over here had to come from the man who helped him with most of his schemes.

Peter stopped looking out of his window and tilted his head to the side, no doubt listening for his sister or any other interested parties. But the twins were causing mass hysteria. Bath time was always chaos with those two. As the youngest non-werewolf Hale’s in the house, the twins are treated a bit gentler than most, like Stiles. And despite only being seven, they were diabolical. Using their powers to disappear or move faster than the eye can see, setting harmless traps to slow down the adults when they were running but naked through the halls.

It’s hilarious. When you’re not the Hale dealing with it. From Peter’s relieved expression, it seemed that it was Uncle James and Aunt Anna dealing with the twins at the moment, which meant Aunt Talia was already down the hall and trying to coax Cora out from under her bed so she could go to sleep.

Peter turned back to him and, with French almost too fast for Stiles to comprehend, said, “ _What do you intend to do about that?_ ”

Peter grinned when Stiles frowned in thought. He’d sort of been hoping his Uncle would have a plan, but he couldn’t exactly ask him to do anything. He was already breaking one of Talia’s rules, breaking anymore by including Peter would get him into even more trouble. But he’d probably disappoint Peter as well.

His Uncle loved how intelligent he was, especially his more devious side. He’s always challenging Stiles to work smarter not harder. Figuring out a way to get Scott over to the house would be a sort of test of his abilities.

Once Peter saw that Stiles was thinking seriously about his next move, he skipped their late night language lesson and left early. He reminded him, in Mandarin this time, that he and Talia would be out of the house for the day tomorrow. They had to go over the old laws and treaties with the new Sheriff.

Without missing a beat, Stiles nodded.

 

The next morning, Aunt Talia, Uncle Peter, and Laura all got ready to leave for town in the middle of breakfast. Depending on who was driving, it usually took about thirty minutes to get from the house to town. Since Stiles saw Peter wink and pocket the keys on the way out, he knew that they’d be there in no less than fifteen minutes.

Stiles waited until he heard the Buick pull fully out of the driveway, before thanking James for the breakfast (he’s the best cook in the house) and running up to his room for the backpack he’d packed for this very moment. In it, he had two water bottles, an extra inhaler he stole from the medkit in the study, and a flashlight. Just in case.

Before he could race out of his room and out the door, Derek blocked his way on the stairs. Derek was the oldest boy in the house, and as such thought that meant he was in charge of Stiles and Kieran. Kieran was still young enough to listen to anyone older than him, and at nine years old he hadn’t figured out how lame Derek was.

But Stiles is ten, and he’s never had to listen to Derek, who was only two years older than him. He’s pretty much the bane of his existence. When they were younger, and Stiles would come here on road trips with his mom, Derek was one of his favorite cousins to play with. He didn’t talk much, but listened when Stiles would ramble on and on about all that he saw on the drive from Nevada to California.

Then, when Stiles actually moved in here, Derek got it into his head that he had to be a big brother or something. Which Stiles wouldn’t mind, he’d been an only child and it felt like every Hale in this house had a sister or a brother to call their own. But Derek was unbearable about it. Always telling him what to do, snitching on him, tagging along with him when he goes scavenging in the Preserve.

He’s thankful that they aren’t in school at the same time cause he’s sure Derek would be all over him there too.

With thick eyebrows lowered heavily over his face, he glares at Stiles and then down at his bag and narrows his eyes in suspicion, “What are you doing?

Stiles weighs his chances of making it past Derek and out the door before he has a chance to catch him. On a good day, he could do it in less than a minute. He could outsmart his cousin and be out the door before the poor guy even knew what hit him. Derek isn’t dumb exactly, it’s just that he likes to think he’s so much smarter than Stiles. It’s just too easy to outsmart him.

Derek has strength and speed on him, he’s older and because of this he’s afforded more responsibility and respect. But Stiles is smart. His brains and his magic is all he really has going for him and Derek is no match for him when he puts them together. But getting into it with Derek now won’t do anything bust delay his escape plan.

He’ll do something funny, like take away Derek’s voice or hex him to speak in riddles and rhymes, and then Derek will try to break his arm or something, and then James will appear out of nowhere. Allegra will undo whatever Stiles did and then Jeremy will make Derek run laps around the Preserve while Stiles was forced to sit through _another_ lecture on the “appropriate” way to use his powers.

It was all really tedious and would only result in further pushing back the time he has to get to and from the McCall house. The McCalls lived all the way across town, in the same house the old Sheriff used to live. He knew of a spell, a simple one that he’d found in Peter’s books that didn’t take much more than belief and a map. Still, draining his magic on Derek of all people wasn’t in his list of to do’s.

“What are _you_ doing?” Stiles asks in the same tone. Derek’s frown deepens and he glares even harder.

“If you don’t tell me what you’re doing I’m gonna tell dad.”

Stiles reflects Derek’s glare right back at him, “If you don’t tell me what you’re doing I’m gonna tell dad.”

Derek blinks back in shock, obviously not anticipating this turn of events. “What are you doing? Are you mimicking me?”

Stiles innocently molds his face into one of shock and says, “What are you doing? Are you mimicking me?”

Derek’s face immediately hardens, so Stiles does the same. Derek crosses his arms across his birdlike chest, and Stiles does the same. When Derek narrows his eyes and huffs impatiently, Stiles does the same.

“You better stop that.” Derek warns sharply.

Stiles replies, “You better stop that.”

Derek shoots him a murderous look before running down the stairs in search of the kitchen, “Dad!”

“Dad!” Stiles echoes, following right on Derek’s heels.

“Stiles is-”

“Derek is-”

Derek stops abruptly and turns back on Stiles with a hard glare, Stiles stops as well and returns the glare. Although he can’t help the smirk fighting it’s way onto his face. That’s how James eventually finds them. Both of them glaring at one another, Stiles fighting a smile off his face, in front of the stairs.

“Boys,” James says wearily, “What now?”

“Stiles is-”

“Derek is-” Stiles and Derek speak in unison, and then they both stop to glare at one another. Derek looks positively murderous, Beta gold eyes staring down at Stiles as his control is slowly being shredded to bits by Stiles. 

James looks between both boys, his brain calculating exactly what’s going on before Derek can even tattle, and then he cuffs them both on the back of the head.

“Derek, you’re twelve years old now, you need to have more control. Go run the Preserve right now.” when Derek shoots an incredulous look up at his father, James raises an impressive eyebrow, “I hadn’t realized I left room for debate. Preserve, now.”

Derek shut his mouth immediately, and after shooting another murderous glare Stiles’ way, he began stalking to the backdoor. Shedding clothes on the way since he knew Talia would throw a fit if he ripped into another pair of clothes while shifting.

James waited until Derek was well and truly gone before turning fond but suspicious eyes down at his nephew. Stiles cast amber brown eyes up at his Uncle innocently, looking for all intents and purposes as someone who didn’t just get his cousin into trouble through pettiness alone. James wasn’t fooled though. He’d grown up with Claudia as well, he knew exactly how devious those wide brown eyes could be.

“Doing anything I should be concerned about Stiles?” James asks with an amused tone of voice.

Stiles shrugged and make his heartbeat stay even. Lying was so hard in a house filled with werewolves and magic users. It was easier to just not say anything to keep from incriminating himself. Still, his so-so answer wasn’t enough to appease his uncles suspicion, so he threw him a bone.

(Wolf pun not intended)

“I’m going over the McCall’s to see if Scott wants to play.” He says honestly.

James looks actually surprised by his words, and then looks down at Stiles happily. His uncle loved it when Stiles let his nicer side out, and he knew that coming so late in the year meant that Scott probably had no friends yet. To see Stiles taking initiative and making friends outside of the household probably warmed his uncle’s soft heart.

The kids of Beacon Hills have all decided somewhat unanimously that Stiles wasn’t worth their time. And Stiles felt pretty much the same. He was an other, a Hale, in their eyes. No matter that his name was still Stilinski. He lived with the Hales, so he hung out with the Hales. So the humans kept their distance and the other werewolves his age looked up to the Hale’s the same way you’d look at the royal family.

Stiles, even though he isn’t a werewolf, was sort of included in that.

James patted Stiles on the head, asked if he wanted a ride, and then left him to his business when Stiles declined. Checking the grandfather clock sitting on the landing, Stiles fist pumped when he realized he still had more than enough time to get to the McCall house and then get Scott back here before Aunt Talia came back home.

And, with Derek out of the way for the next two hours, no one would even bat an eye at the new edition to the number of kids usually in the house. It would all work out perfectly.


	5. Do You Want To Build A Snowman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm so sorry for my absence. No really, so sorry. School and work got in the way and I'd be so exhausted at the end of the day i had no time to write.
> 
> But I missed my Hales and the Stilinski Spark so I decided to be a bad student and put off doing my homework to give you guys this super late chapter.
> 
> It was really supposed to come to you guys last weekend but like I said, School.
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

When Stiles finally hops off the last two steps of the Hale House porch, he breaks into a run towards his bike. He figures if his spell doesn’t work out at least he’ll still have a way to get to Scott’s house. Thankfully, Derek is out running the Preserve, he won’t come to bother Stiles while he tries to harness his magic.

The older boy is always sticking his nose in Stiles’ business. Especially his magic. It’s like the wolf has some sort of sixth sense when it come to the young Spark.

Stiles waits until he’s a good distance away from the house, taking extra care to be upwind even though it takes him off the main path towards the road. Derek may not be sniffing around, but the rest of the family definitely knows what magic smells like. Doing anything as spectacular as a transportation spell would definitely bring his aunts and uncles down on his head.

He walks until he can’t see the yellow of the house, and then walks a bit more until he’s hummed the Mario Bro’s theme song twice. Stiles stills in the forest, careful that the path ahead of him is clear of any treacherous roots or branches, anything that can trip him up and ruin his concentration.

The books Peter left him were confusing, missing words and letters where the ink had flaked away or a page had been folded weirdly. He understood it well enough (he didn’t read five years above his grade level for nothing), but it still took him time to put those ancient words into action. The book isn’t really _Magic for Dummies_ , so it’s hard to connect what the book says with what Peter and his Aunt’s taught him.

‘Cause Aunt Anna was all but finding your center and connecting that to the earth beneath you. Her magic relied heavily on ley lines and drawing power from that. It’s as cool as it sounds honestly. What ten year old kid _doesn’t_ love meditating for hours on end while musky incense burns his nose and music with no words plays in the background.

Aunt Allegra was more fun, but also more dangerous. Which he supposes a woman would have to be to marry and then procreate with his Uncle Peter. She tells him what she’s gonna do, how she does it, and then she just does it. Whether he’s prepared or not. When he complained to Uncle James with soot on his cheeks and a distinct smell of burnt rubber on his body, the man simply explained that everyone has their way of doing things. Aunt Allegra’s just so happen to scare the shit out of everybody.

Peter said it better of course. He said Aunt Allegra was the type to throw you in the deep end to teach you how to swim. In her eyes, if your instincts didn’t kick in to keep air in your lungs and your head above water, how much do you really deserve to play in a pool?

None of their methods would work for this, because he was still learning how to use them. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he just sat here and tried to meditate his way to Scott’s house, he’d get distracted by something. Or Derek would find him. Or he’d doze off and all that time Uncle Peter bought him would be for naught.

And he wouldn’t dare try Allegra’s way. He was still healing from the rash he got the _last_ time he used her methods. And that spell had been relatively simple. Trying to change the color of your shirt so you could get away with not bathing shouldn’t have resulted in hives the size of quarters.

So he goes back to his usual methods.

Closing his eyes and trying that deep breathing thing Aunt Anna was a fan of, he tried to picture the Sheriff’s house. He’d been there twice in his short time in Beacon Hills. Once, to pay his respects with Talia after the Sheriff’s wife died, and a second time for the Sheriff’s retirement party.

It wasn’t as big as the Hale house (although few houses in town were) but it was a decent sized house for a family of three. Blue siding, white molding, small porch. It was just unremarkable enough to be kinda fuzzy when Stiles tries to remember it, but he manages.

When he takes his first step, eyes still closed, he imagines himself walking on the grass to those porch steps. He forces his body to feel the sun in front of him instead of at his back, since that’s where the sun would be on that side of town. He forces his body to hear the crunch of leaves and dead grass since the previous Sheriff had never been one for yard work.

As Stiles conjures this picture in his mind, he pulls at the warmth in his core. Drawing hard at that balmy heat in his center. He pulls until his breath leaves him, and with his next step he’s falling….

….warmth on his neck disappears and he’s so cold….

….falling….

….how has his foot not hit the ground yet?

….falling.

Until with a thud, he lands face first on dew slick dead grass and limp leaves. He gasps desperately, and blindly moves his head from side to side to shake that strange ringing in his ears and the fuzzy feeling behind his eyes.

“Whoah…” a voice calls from his left.

Unseeingly, Stiles turns his head to the noise, and tries to figure out if it’s Scott. He wishes desperately for werewolf senses because his vision is still wonky. If he could at least smell the guy he might have a better shot at playing off the fact that he didn’t even land on his feet.

“Dude how did you do that?”

Okay, yeah, that’s Scott. Blindly, Stiles levers himself up to his feet, and hysterically notes that his thighs and chest are gonna be crazy bruised by tonight. And sure, he can hide the discoloration well enough with clothes, but every were’ in that house is gonna smell his pain the second he comes home.

That’s if he can make it back since his _sight has yet to return!_

“Dude, you okay?” Scott asks worriedly.

Stiles sends a tight smile in the direction he hopes Scott’s in, “Well, as cool as that magic trick was, it has a pretty interesting side effect.”

He can hear Scott gasp, even without the werewolf hearing, and then suddenly pudgy, sticky hands are touching his face. In seconds, the oppressive darkness covering his eyes recedes to a gray film, casting everything in silhouette. Seconds later that too, is gone. Leaving Stiles to watch Scott blinking at him unseeingly for several long seconds.

Scott blinks for a long time, and then his dark eyes focus’ on Stiles. “Better?” he asks sweetly, as if he hadn’t just blown Stiles’ mind for a few seconds.

“Dude!” Stiles yells incredulously. Scott flinches, and then his brown skin darkens around his cheeks in embarrassment. Stiles laughs and knocks Scott on the shoulder, sending the shorter boy stumbling back.

He may not be as strong as werewolves, but he’s stronger than the average human. So he may have accidentally put a bit too much into his happy shove. When Stiles goes to apologise though, Scott’s is already back in his space and knocking him too.

“That’s kind of why we moved here in the first place. Well, that, and Mom wanted dad to take less hours at work. Beacon Hills just seemed to call to us.” Scott explained bashfully.

Stiles was still reeling over the fact that his friend basically cured his blindness so he just starts blurting out questions. He asks Scott how he first learned about his abilities, how it works, if it has any negative effects on him. He asks them kind of rapid fire, stream of conscious like. As soon as the thought occurs to him he blurts it out, even if it’s in the middle of another sentence.

As he does this, they begin the walk away from Scott’s house and down the road leading out of his cul de sac. Scott answers the questions when Stiles pauses for breath, and the system works well to pass the time as the take a shortcut through the woods to the Hale property.

Scott’s mom knew of his abilities first. Something or other he’d done when he was a baby involving Scott’s father and his mother. It made him uncomfortable to talk about too deeply so Stiles didn’t probe.

Scott himself found out about his actual abilities when just before they moved here. They’d been dissecting frogs in his class, and he’d accidentally brought his frog back to life. The thing would die, because of all the chemicals in it and the fact that it had pieces of metal holding it down to a tray, but Scott continued to bring it back to life. Over and over again. Much to the disgust of his teachers and peers.

The cycle finally stopped when Scott, traumatized and sobbing, ran from the room and out of the school. By the time his mother found him, she’d already checked him out of school and his dad began putting out feelers at police stations in California.

The walk back to the Hale house takes a good hour and a half, it would have taken less time thanks to how well Stiles knows the woods, but Scott and his asthma slows them down. But they make it back before Talia get’s back and even before Derek gets back, which causes Stiles to fist pump with joy.

First stop, the kitchen. No one goes into the kitchen much, except for breakfast or snack, or to run through on their way out the door. That’s mostly because his Uncle James, run’s the kitchen with an iron fist.

Uncle James is a pretty laid back guy, he’s the one all the kids run to when they need comfort and kind eyes. He’s the total opposite of Aunt Talia in some ways too. His hair is orange (light brown he argues day in and day out) and his eyes are a heady green color that makes you feel refreshed.

His face is freckle free, but filled with lines and wrinkles from laughter and all the work he does outside in the family garden and out on the preserve. He’s always in a sweater and worn jeans, walking barefoot around the house and the family property ‘cause shoes annoy him.

Stiles knows, that by bringing Scott into the kitchen first, he’ll at least get his Uncle to lessen whatever punishment Aunt Talia thinks up because of his insolence. Not to mention he’s kinda starving.

Scott shyly walks up the island where James is mixing something sweet smelling and thick. Stiles hopes it’s the dessert for dinner. If James is in a good enough mood he’ll let him lick the bowl since they both know he’ll do something during the day to have his dessert privileges revoked for the night.

James doesn’t pause in his stirring as he regard the two ten year olds, “Boys,” he says amiably. Stiles can’t tell what kind of mood he’s in, so he just jumps into his spiel.

“Uncle James,” Stiles says innocently. He’s gifted with an eyebrow raise and a smirk, but James doesn’t say anything else.

“See, we were gonna play at Scott’s house, but I wanted to show him my powers and I know you said I couldn’t use magic off the family property.” Stiles hedges. Scott’s looking obliviously between his friend and the adult, both of them pretty much ignore him.

“Okay…” James says, waiting for Stiles’ actual request.

With a toothy smile, Stiles says, “May Scott and I play in the back yard?”

James narrows his eyes, not buying the innocent act for a second. And Stiles feels a sweat break out on the back of his neck as his Uncles’ stare goes on for a few seconds too long. But he’s saved, once again by Scott, and the sound of a rumbling stomach. James immediately melts and goes into Dad Mode. 

“Scott are you hungry? Have you eaten today?” James breaks the staring contest and sets his caring gaze upon a sheepish looking McCall.

With a shrug Scott says, “Mom told dad to make me lunch because she had a double shift at the hospital. But dad had to go talk to Alpha Hale so he told me to make something for myself.” wringing his shirt in his hands, Scott finished speaking with his face down at his shoes. “I don’t know where everything is yet, so I thought I’d wait until my mom got home.”

 

If it were possible for a man’s eyes to go both steely with frustration and warm in sympathy, then James Hale would have accomplished it. Looking over at Stiles, some of his suspicion bleed into his eyes, but then Scott’s stomach grumbles again, and his fatherly instincts win out.

“Stiles, go take Scott to wash up and I’m gonna make you guys some lunch. Call the cavalry in too will you?” James has already turned back towards the fridging and began rummaging around.

Stiles takes his victory with a salute to his Uncle’s back, and then motions Scott to follow him to the downstairs bathroom. Scott tries to apologise for making them feed him, but Stiles waves it off.

“Uncle James is always looking for an excuse to cook. And werewolves have pretty voracious appetites so you would have had to eat with us at some point.”

Later, sitting in the living with the most delicious sandwich Stiles has ever eaten and a Capri Sun, he pats himself on the back for a job well done. Kat, Kieran, and Cora have all taken to Scott well. They treat him like one of the pack and don’t even question his presence in the house. Derek, of course, has a sour look on his face but Stiles ignores it when the twins finish their food and begin levitating everyone’s bread crusts.

When lunch is over, Kat helps him carry Ella and Emma outside with the rest of the kids. He wanted to show Scott more of his powers once they got back to the house, but when he prods at the ball of heat in his chest, nothing happens. He assumes (hopes desperately) that his power is just sleeping or something, because he doesn’t know how to explain his lack of magic at his next lesson with his Aunts and Peter.

The twins make up for his lack of power. They conjure of miniature bunnies and foxes made out of grass and dead leaves. They create a vortex of of sweet smelling wind to ruffle the hair of everyone who gets near it. Everyone takes turns running around and trying to catch the grass bunnies. Kat’s the only one who goes after the fox.

Cora forgets sometimes, that Scott is more human than the rest of them, more human than Stiles. So she rightly panics when her claws (which are out because they’re all playing freeze tag and they give her a longer reach) nicks Scott really seriously on one cheek.

The entire forest seems to still as blood wells and then drips down Scott’s cheek. Everyone’s in shock, even the twins. No one knows how to react, at all. If Scott were a were, he’d have healed already. The blood left over being the only sign that he’d been hurt. If he’d been Stiles, he’d have grinned through the pain, wiped off his cheek, and then tried to get Cora back.

No one quite knows how to react when a human like Scott gets injured.

So they all stare at him, the Hale’s plus one. And he stares back, the lone McCall. Years later, when Stiles is older and reminiscing with Scott, he’ll recall thinking that moment would last forever. Because it feels like it will. To every child at that moment, that strange stillness would never end. They’d go on into infinity staring at Stiles and the bleeding cut on his cheek.

Fittingly, it’s Talia Hale who breaks the silence in the end. And like the cowards they are, all the kids abandon Stiles and Scott to the Alpha’s ire.

When Talia roars, “What the hell is going on out here?” Ellarie and Emma blink out of existence immediately. A faint scream from inside the house reveal that they’ve popped into the bathroom their mother had been bathing in.

Kat and Kieran follow soon after, shooting commiserating looks at Stiles before they both book it back to the house. To save themselves from having to brush past the angry Alpha, they run instead around the side of the house.

Cora is the only one who linger’s, stuck between fear for her mother and fear over the fact that she’d just hurt a human. When Talia begins stomping her way down the back porch steps, Peter close at her heels, fear over her mother wins out.

Cora whispers a curt, “Sorry.” in Scott’s direction, and then cuts sympathetic eyes at Stiles, before she too books it back to the house. 

Sadly, Stiles can’t even find it in him to be betrayed. He knows for a fact that had he been in their shoes, had he not been the ringleader to their little rule breaking brigade, he too would have peeled out of there. Talia was scary on a good day, but give her something to actually be mad about (something Stiles is pretty sure he does every time he blinks), and she’s downright ferocious.

Stiles fights off a gulp, and stares at Talia head on. If he’s going to get yelled at, he may as well take it on his feet. Cowering wouldn’t do anything to save him. All it’d do is make him look weak.

“Why is there a bleeding McCall in my house _Genim Claud Stilinski_?”

 _Shit!_ Stiles thinks, _she went full name._

Quite suddenly, Stiles feels like he was an idiot for not making a run for it like his cousins.


	6. Better Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. I know, _another_ large gap between updates. But I really am trying you guys. I was so excited to write this story, and I still am. So there's no chance of me abandoning this fic anytime soon. 
> 
> But fair warning, after this chapter there will be another age jump, and we will get into the Derek/Stiles part of this fic.

Stiles expects to be grounded. He’s gone through the Hale punishment wheel almost twice now, nothing surprises him anymore. And ging behind the Alpha’s back to do something he _knows_ he shouldn’t is a reason enough to expect to be grounded. Only that’s not what happened at all. What does happen though is pretty epic, it’s actually worth all the training that comes afterwards.

Because quite honestly, knowing Aunt Talia tore into Rafe McCall makes control lessons and sore eyes entirely worth it.

So Talia really gets into it, the yelling schtick, the rhetorical questions she half wants him to answer but still snaps at him when she does. She crescendoing up to the part where she asks, “ _Why_ , can’t you just for _once_ do what I say? Will it kill you to obey me?” when Rafe McCall lets himself into the back yard.

Strike one.

Peter tries, in a way that’s clear that he’s not trying at all and finds this whole situation amusing, to warn McCall off. Tries, quietly (yet still loud enough to make his sister pause as he interrupts her) to tell him that he came at a bad time, and that it’d be best if he tried again later. But McCall was stupid, or arrogant, which is really the same thing if you thought about it, and approached anyway.

Talia stilled, still seething, but kept one red tinted eye on Stiles, he was known to take brief distraction as an opportunity to escape. And with all the kids and other adults in the house, Talia would be distracted enough to forget his punishment. Until, of course, he did something else to attract her notice. But Stiles was stock still anyway, she needn’t have bothered. Because this was his first time ever coming into contact with Sheriff McCall.

He’d seen him in passing, going from the front door to the Alpha’s study without a passing glance to the seven children idling around the house. But Stiles has never seen someone the way he sees the Sheriff at this moment.

Rafe looks like Scott, but harder, wrinkles and stress lines pressed deep into an otherwise attractive face. Scott has his mother’s disposition, kindhearted and doe eyed. But you can see the resemblance in their eye color, shoulders, and mouth. When McCall looks down on Stiles, his eyes hard and cold, Stiles sees nothing but red.

The Sheriff is outlined in this insidious looking dull red, it seeps out into the air in a thick wave. It dissipates about three inches away from his actual body, but it taints and twists the colors surrounding his aunt and uncle. The deep aubergine surrounding Peter is burgundy and maroon wherever it comes into contact with McCall’s. Talia’s, a obsidian black depthless and powerful, seems to dull wherever it touches the colors emanating from the Sheriff.

Stiles doesn’t know what to think of this development. He can't exactly speak up, Talia is politely informing the Sheriff that this is a family matter she can handle herself. All the while the black surrounding her pulses and crackles with an energy Stiles wants to lean away from. And he’s sure McCall is responding, the condescending look of placation on his face couldn’t be any clearer of a sign that he’s being a prick.

Peter stands by wordless, his sister’s left as always, watching and carefully cataloguing the conversation for later. Where he’ll provide insight for his Alpha to go over and pick apart. His aura is slower moving, but no less agitated.

Stiles can’t tell if aura is the right word for what he’s seeing, because he’s only ever heard Aunt Anna saying it and she weird enough to braid flowers into her hair and where it that way for _days_. You can’t trust the words of a woman with wilted daisies and azalea's wrapped in wreaths in her dark hair.

Besides, now that he’s noticed these auras -whatever they are- he realizes that something is off about the good Sheriff. If the actions of his family regarding him weren’t proof enough, then the sickly way his aura touches those of his aunt an uncle would be. He can’t focus on what’s _wrong_ but the feeling tugging in his chest is enough to get him to reach for Aunt Talia’s hand while she’s mid growl and steal away her attention.

She looks befuddled and frustrated, but Stiles doesn’t let that daunt him. “I know it was wrong to go and bring Scott her without permission, but I needed to.” At Talia’s skeptical gaze and critical eyebrow raise, he nods his head in the direction of the other man, “Scott told me he hadn’t eaten all day, and he doesn’t have any friends besides me and my cousins.”

Talia looks a little less hostile now, but that’s mostly because it all being focused on the Sheriff. “You left a child in a house with no food?”

Strike two.

Her voice sounds politely accusing. Like a stranger accusing you of stealing your heart before offering to buy you a drink or dinner. Only her dark eyes had a very stark and hard look in them. A look that said, “Say the wrong thing and I’ll flay you alive.” Peter matched his sister’s glare, raising an eyebrow at McCall that says, “And I’ll let my children use your inner organs as toys.

McCall shrugged, not looking altogether convinced what he did was right, but also not insulting their intelligence by trying to deny it, “Melissa coddles the boy. How’s he ever gonna learn to take care of himself if she’d there to heal every scrape and booboo he gets. He need’s to learn how to take care of himself.”

If it was possible, Stiles thinks Talia would have steam coming out of here ear’s right then and there. As it is, she closer to the shift than he’s ever seen her. Talia has immaculate control. She was the one who taught Peter his control, and he could control his shift like no werewolf that Stiles had ever seen. But something Talia couldn’t tolerate, was the mistreatment of children.

Strike three.

“He’s _ten_ ,” Talia hisses. The only thing keeping her from shifting outright is the fact that as the Sheriff and the town Alpha, they need to have at least a working relationship for the good of the town. It’s the same reason she has tea with Gerard Argent once a month; for the good of the town.

But Talia does _not_ like Rafael McCall, and as much as Stiles loves to disagree with her, he feels the same way. So when he pulls on his aunt’s arm, to regain her attention, he points at his eyes and says, “I can _see_ him Aunt Talia, and this man is….” He tries to convey meaning through his eyes, fully aware that a human and a _cop_ is still listening to them talk about him.

But Talia gets it, and her eyes narrow once more as she regards the Sheriff. “I will not tell you how to raise your child, but there is more than enough room for Scott here should you and your wife ever find your schedules conflicting.”

Rafe looks uncomfortable and furious. He seems to be fighting the urge to glare outright at Stiles himself, but the frankly murderous glance he sends his way is enough to have the ten year old flinch into his aunt’s side. Peter notices and instinctively, smoothly, slides to Stiles’ other side, grabbing the boy's hand in his own.

“Come, Stiles. The Alpha and the Sheriff have many things they need to go over before the day is over. And I’m sure you’ve kept Scott waiting long enough.”

Oh. Stiles knows what that means. And now he wants to stick around, lecture be damned. Talia is going to rip into McCall, totally destroy him in a matter of seconds and he doesn’t want to miss it. Stiles feels a moment of envy for his cousins and aunts and uncles all at once. No matter where they are in the house, aside from the study, they’ll be able to hear the fantastic tongue lashing Talia is about to give. And Stiles, a Spark but still half human, will miss it all.

He tries to protest, but the second he opens his mouth, Peter looks down at him with an eyebrow raised, “You and I will have to talk about your sight as well, so don’t think you can go bribe Kat or Kieran to listen in on that conversation for you.”

Stiles immediately pouts. Now he _know’s_ it’s gonna be good. It’s probably been building Peter, Talia, and Laura went to meet with the Sheriff in the first place. And does he get to listen to it? _No_ , because he had to open his fat mouth and tell his aunt and uncle all about his “sight”.

Peter laughs at Stiles’ immediate mood drop. “Look on the brightside, little Spark. You’re not the one on the receiving end this time.”

Stiles manages a smile at that, and when Peter prods him further, even a little laugh. If he knows his cousins he knows Cora and Kat will act it out for him at dinner tonight. Plus, he did get Scott a longstanding invitation to the Hale house, so that’s a plus. Actually, that thought puts him in a better mood.

He managed a super difficult spell today, did something he wasn’t supposed to without getting punished, _and_ made it possible for his new best friend to come over whenever he wanted. Stiles’ wishful thinking actually came through for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to kudos, comment, bookmark, or even send me an email if your question/comment is too long for Ao3. I love hearing from you all. Even the comments that aren't as nice as I'd like them to be.


	7. Promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been written (kinda edited) and posted on my phone. So all mistakes are my own and will be edited at the completion of this story.
> 
> Also! A much requested character makes a surprise appearance and this chapter isn't finished so please be kind until I post part two.

Stiles is thirteen years old when he hears from his father for the first time in five years. 

When Derek comes up to his room, the ever present scowl that’s been on his face since his fourteenth birthday mysteriously gone, Stiles just _knew_ Talia had found his stash of counterfeit magic goods. He’d put a protective spell on it to cloak it from wandering eyes and the stench of dirty clothes, lacrosse gear, and whatever food he’d forgotten to take down to the kitchen had kept his secret well. But Talia was the Alpha, who knew what she could find out.

Derek looked apprehensive, worried almost, for Stiles no less. He may not have that wolfy sense of smell, but anytime Derek actually talked to him without rolling his eyes was enough of a signal that something _serious_ was going on.

“Um….there’s a man on the phone. Downstairs,” Derek blurts. His cheeks begin to pink, and then his impressive brow furrows in anger and he glares at Stiles. “Go get the phone.” and with that, he stomps away.

Stiles, still processing the fact that Derek willingly came up to his room, stared after him in shock. Derek’s only two years older than him, but ever since they both hit puberty, he’s began to treat him even more weirdly than usual. When they were younger, they were almost friends. They played together and often teamed up during family games, tortured Laura together when she liked to pretend she was better than them because she was older, etc. 

Good times, fun times, times he looks back on with a bittersweet fondness. His mom was a big part of those times.

But then Stiles became a permanent resident in Casa de la Hale, and Derek did a total 180. Stiles became something he felt he had to take care of or boss around and protect. Stiles, a human Spark among werewolves, didn’t like that one bit. So for a time, their relationship consisted of them pranking and messing with one another until one of them drew blood and were forcibly separated.

That all changed quite suddenly on Derek’s fourteenth birthday. It’s a tradition for the Alpha to take any Beta starting puberty on a trip for their first full shift, and once they mastered it they came back to the rest of the pack. Something about that trip changed Derek. He stopped messing with Stiles, in fact he avoided Stiles all together. He spent more time with Peter and his sister, Laura. Which Stiles wouldn’t mind, he loves hanging out with Peter. But nowadays if Derek was with Peter, Stiles needed to go somewhere else.

In a word, the whole arrangement sucked. And it hasn’t gotten better now that Derek is fifteen either.

When Stiles finally makes it downstairs to pick up the phone, he comes into the kitchen to find Uncle James balancing Cora on his back as he straps the twins into their outerwear.

“What’s going on?” Stiles asks. 

“Talia’s going to be the study for the night, handling pack business. Peter’s in there with her, so I’m all alone out here with the monsters.” James tickles Cora’s side until she finally jumps off his back, and then he returns to making sure the twins are all buttoned up and ready to go.

“Laura is on a college tour with Jeremy and Anna, and Allegra is on business trip. I thought I’d get something to eat real quick before Kat and Keir are back from day camp. Wanna come along?” James finally looks at him once he’s satisfied he has everyone appropriately bundled up and ready to go. Stiles shrugs, and James takes it for the no that it is.

“Well, I’ll be back in an hour, and I’ll start dinner then so if you're hungry, get a snack. See you in a bit kiddo.” James ruffles Stiles’ hair as he passes. Scent marking him, no doubt. Cora shoots him a lopsided grin, and roughly nudges his shoulder into him as she passes. Stiles nearly falls to the floor. Cora cackles.

The twins are kinder in their goodbyes, Ella hands him a dead frog, and Emma brings it back to life for him.

Stiles waits until he’s sure no one else is in the house to properly freak out and gag. He drops the frog immediately, rubbing his hands on his shorts over and over until he gets that clammy, dewy, sticky feeling off of his fingers. The frog, no doubt confused over his sudden reanimation, hops off further into the house. Stiles plays with the idea of catching it and putting it outside, but then realizes it’ll be so much funnier when Aunt Talia finds it.

Finally, _finally_ , Stiles picks up the waiting phone, and presses it against his ear. He expects Scott, the Sheriff had recently bought him a new iPhone (a guilt gift after the divorce) and he likes to call the house to tell Stiles about it or his dad or the new girl in town his has a huge crush on.

But when Stiles says, “Scott if this is you trying to trap me into listening to the poetry you wrote Allison I swear to God I’ll sick the twins on you.” a familiar, dry huff is what answers him.

And then a voice, deep, weary, crackly over the landline, says, “I’d forgotten that Peter reproduced. It seems fitting that his daughters are also little terrors.”

Stiles starts, pulls the phone away to stare at it, like maybe he’d picked up the wrong phone. But no, it’s the same phone as always. The coily phone cord just as knotted as he’d left it that time he’d thought it was a good idea to tie Derek up when he’d fallen asleep at the kitchen table. The cracked puke green casing had all the familiar chips and scratches on it, the paint was still rubbed off on the most used numbers. This phone is still the phone that the Hales have used since the eighties.

It’s just the voice, the voice that soothed him when he’d have nightmares, read along with him to Cat in the Hat, Green eggs and Ham (the classics), the voice that had told him things would get better as they lowered his mom into the ground.

“Dad?”

There's a sigh and a pause, “Hey, kid. God, Stiles. You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.” There's a thick chuckle, and something in Stiles cracks a bit.

He hadn't heard from his dad since he dropped him on the Hale’s front step all those years ago. And back then he'd been angry about everything. Angry about the powers he couldn't control or understand. Angry that his mother, the most wonderful person he'd ever met, was gone forever. Losing his father had hurt most of all. His dad was all he had left in the world, and he just gave him up.

He must have been too silent, or maybe the shitty reception out here in the sticks made it sound like he'd hung up, cause his dad starts talking in a rush.

“I meant to call earlier kiddo, but things have been really rough for me since….since she passed. I wasn't in a good place to be a father to you.” Stiles snorts, and his father sighs. 

“I don't exactly expect you to care kid, but try to understand where I'm coming from. I didn't want to leave you with that woman. But what choice did I have?”

Stiles finds himself looking around the kitchen as his father speaks, and it's hard to not hang up. There's the part of him, the stubborn eight year old who refused to unpack his bags the first six months, who sat buy the phone as long as he was allowed _hoping_ his father would call, he wants to hear his dad out. He feels terrible for giving up on his father, so the least he could do was hear the man out.

But then there's him. The one that Talia, James, Peter, and all the other Hales worked so hard to raise, that hesitates. It was James who signed him up for lacrosse and makes sure he takes his meds before he goes to school in the morning. It's Talia, Peter, Allegra, and Anna who taught him how to be a Spark, who taught him control. Jeremy’s the one that practices with him before every game, helps him into his gear and talks strategy with him even though he spends all his time on the bench.

His father willingly gave up all that because his son wasn't enough to fight the grief of losing his wife.

“Hey dad,” Stiles says suddenly, interrupting whatever John had been droning on about while Stiles was lost in his memories.

“Yes, son?” He says confused.

“Did you know that after mom died, Talia Hale would take off into the woods randomly just to howl?”

There's a pause, and then John stutters out a, “N-no. I didn't know that.”

“You see,” Stiles continues as if his father hasn't said anything, “She's the Alpha right? So she had to help everyone else with their grief, because the whole family loved mom. Uncle James used to bake with her and trade recipes. Her, Aunt Allegra, and Aunty Anna used were an unofficial coven for a time. So they actually _felt_ it when mom died.”

“Stiles,” John tries to interrupt, but Stiles has worked himself up now. He's _going_ to finish.

“And Uncle Peter grew up with her you know? It was like losing another sister. Like losing a pack member. And me, I was devastated. Talia wasn't even allowed to grieve. Because she's the Alpha, and her pack needed her. She'd do anything for her pack.”

“I know son.” John tries.

“No! You don't! You left me, I waited for you to come back, I had Talia look for you, and you never came back!” He punctuates his outburst by slamming the phone down into the receiver and stalking away.

He runs almost immediately into Derek, who looks stricken and wide eyed. Stiles isn't prone to bouts of yelling, in fact you'd be hard pressed to name a time when anyone has ever seen Stiles less than upbeat. He looks like he wants to say something, and Stiles has a moment to think about how strange Derek’s been acting since he came back from his trip with the alpha, before he pushes past the older boy roughly.

Stiles walks out of the house, his feet already directing him to the little cottage on the edge of the Hale’s inner backyard where Allegra and Anna practice most of their magic. But just as he gets to the ivy covered wooden door, he remembers that both his Aunts are out. Which is just _awful_ timing because he can feel his power crackling in his fingertips, little bursts of power seeking some outlet. He contemplates going back inside, pulling Peter out of the meeting with the Alpha, but he honestly doesn't want to be around anyone but Anna and Allegra right now.

He needs Anna’s petite, birdlike gentility. He needs Allegra’s power and fury, fanning his anger at his dad. He needs leather to braid into magical protectors, the repeating twisting and wrapping of thick cords a sure fire way to cleanse him of this overwrought feeling.

Instead, he gets Derek. Who, for some reason even he doesn't seem to know, had followed him out to the backyard. 

“I think you should call him back.” Derek says hesitantly.

Stiles scoffs, “Why should I? He never made time for me? He never thought about how I felt about anything.”

Derek rolls his eyes and sighs, “He let you have a childhood. He put you in a place of stability and family. You heard him, he wasn't in a good place.”

“You know Derek just because you _can_ eavesdrop on the half human doesn't mean you _should_.” Stiles retorts viciously.

He's trying to prod Derek into annoyance or anger. He wants Derek as mad and as hurt as he is, maybe then he'll give him an outlet for his frustration. 

For once, Derek doesn't take the bait. “You asked mom to track him down, you ask Dad every day whether or not he's called or sent a letter. Why have you suddenly decided that you don't care?”

Stiles groans and turns away from searching hazel green eyes and starts stomping further into the preserve. Derek doesn't get it, no one in this house gets it.

They all have each other, they're all complete. They lost his mom yes, and that was awful, for all of them. They didn't just loses a family friend, they lost a pack member. Stiles was right to snap on his dad for forgetting that Talia, bitchy werewolf she may be, lost her best friend the and sister.

But they Hales were still _together_ Talia still had James, Allegra and Peter still had each other, Jeremy and Anna still have one another. And they all still have their children. They're all still pack even after losing one of their members.

Stiles lost his mom, lost his dad, the home he grew up in, everything familiar. His father left him in the middle of nowhere Northern California and just thought he could call and everything would be alright? 

No! That's not how it works. 

“What would have happened if your dad kept you instead of leaving you with us?” Derek asks. He's annoyingly able to keep up with Stiles without any real exertion on his part despite Stiles practically jogging through the forest.

Dodging the question, and a surprising fallen tree branch, Stiles pushes himself into a run. He'd been meaning to go on a run for a while now anyway, and if it meant it took him farther away from the house (and the house phone) then it was just a coincidence.

“Stiles,” Derek calls between breathes. Stiles ignores his call and focuses on the inane and short lived wave of jealousy he feels for his cousin at that moment.

Derek won the genetic lottery in the worst way. He was a werewolf and captain of the varsity basketball team. Virtually unheard of for a sophomore to get that position, but Derek’s always doing impossible things.

“Stiles!” Derek insists and Stiles groans.

“We’d have been fine!” He says between clenched teeth. When he notices Derek gearing up to argue, he makes a sharp turn towards his right. Cutting Derek off and forcing him to stop to keep from running into Stiles. It only takes him a second to recover, but that's all Stiles needs.

He pulls at the magic warming his core, and cloaks himself in the greens and browns of the forest around him. Masking his scent takes only a second more, but Derek's oblivious since he's trying to over correct in the dew slick greenery.

It's childish of him to do this, use his magic for personal gain, but Stiles shucks the guilt immediately. He circles Derek once, feet as quiet as air, and continues his run.

Derek, the snitch, will probably tell his dad on him the second he figures out that Stiles went back home. Which means Stiles needs to gird himself now if he wants to survive the disappointed half smile and cow eyes Uncle James will level on him at dinner. He hates disappointing his uncle. 

But when it comes to this, he will if he has to. His father left _him_. No one's gonna convince him he's in the wrong for not wanting to talk to him.


	8. Love Will Tell Us Where to Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY!!!! Hi! It has definitely been a while, but in my defense; I have a job now. I usually try to write on the weekends but I work on the weekends now. Writing during the week will have to be my new normal.
> 
> One of my classes ended early this semester so I do have a lot more free time now, *but* I'm also behind in one of my classes.
> 
> SO! Let me catch up with that and work out my schedule a little better and I PROMISE you, updates will be a lot more consistent.

Derek doesn’t say anything at dinner that night, but he does send meaningful looks at Stiles from across the table. Stiles ignores him while they’re passing around the different dishes, to the point that Cora’s looking at him funny when he reaches around Derek to pass her the mashed potatoes. If Derek looks like he’s about to speak up then Stiles will talk animatedly about some stunt that Scott pulled to get the attention of the Argent girl in town.

It works for the main part of the meal, but when everyone’s passing out thirds and Stiles has his mouth filled with meatloaf, Derek opens his mouth. Evidently, Stiles has to pull out the big guns.

“Derek has a girlfriend!” he exclaims over the din in the Hale dining room. He looks from face to face at the table to make sure that _everyone_ is paying attention, and then he deepens his grave, “Her name’s Paige and she plays the cello. She’s not bad actually.”

When everyone turns questioning looks on Derek, he returns to stuffing his face with mashed potatoes. He also makes sure to scoot imperceptibly closer to Katherine. Out of all the cousins (Laura and Cora included) Kat is frankly terrifying. Should Derek try to throw something at Stiles, all he has to do is give it a little _push_ towards the brunette and she’ll be up and running.

Stiles needn’t have bothered though, because right as Derek looks seconds away from leaping across the table (he’s already partially in Beta shift), Talia is turning more fully towards her son with a concerned look on her face.

“A girlfriend, Derek.” Talia glances worriedly over at James, who returns his wife’s look of pure confusion. They both turn to Peter, who’s smirking over at his nephew with a positively predatory glint in his eyes.

It’s Aunt Anna then, who breaks the silence. She squeals excitedly and launches herself (as much as she can with baby number three slowing her down) into Derek’s arms. “Oh that’s so beautiful, a musician! We need a musician in the family, lord knows it’s been so long since I’ve had someone to sing with. Oh Jeremy isn’t that nice?”

Uncle Jeremy, more concerned with getting his heavily pregnant back upright in her own chair just mumbles an absent, “Congrats, Der.” 

Katherine and Kieran are smirking into their plates, sharing a look with Laura and the twins across the table from them. Cora’s outright laughing. So hard in fact she’s listing in her chair, leaning further and further out of her seat. Stiles has to let her lean into him so she won’t fall out of the chair. The light bruising is worth it to keep Derek’s mouth shut. His face, what can be seen through Beta shift, is a bright red color.

“John Stilinski called today and Stiles hung up in his face!” Derek manages over his sister’s cackling. He bolts the second focus shifts off of him and Stiles can’t even be mad. He’d bolt too if the heavy silence that drops over the entire table didn’t have him pinned to his seat. Cora stops cackling to shoot him large, worried eyes. Uncle James is giving him the same look, and he _knows_ Laura is trying to catch his eye as well.

If he could he'd sink into his chair and then under the table, but his situation is pathetic on it's own without him unsuccessfully trying to evaporate. Suddenly the food in his mouth tastes like ash, and swallowing is the last thing he wants to do. He does anyway. No reason Uncle Jeremy should have to suffer because Stiles got a taste of his own medicine. Plus Aunt Talia is looking pretty pissed right now, any sudden moves and she'll turn it on him he's sure.

“Derek!” Talia calls, her eyes are dangerously red where they settle on Stiles, and he just _knows_ this is gonna end with him grounded or something. The only consolation about that bleak fact is that if he’s going down, Derek’s going down with him. Derek returns with gold eyes and fangs marring his mouth. He whines like a puppy under his Alpha’s stare, but Talia is unrelenting.

“Children, you may take your plates and eat in the living room. Turn the volume up as you please.” Talia’s voice is low and smooth, falsely calm and it takes everyone in the room a minute to realize that she’s dismissed them. It isn’t until Peter casts inhuman, ice blue eyes upon all of them that they all scramble. Even Laura, who’d normally pitch a fit over being lumped with the _babies_ has taken her plate and run away. But she gives Stiles a look that says, “Spill the deets and I’ll sneak you dessert when you're grounded.”

Or at least something to that effect. He and Laura developed this unspoken code a while back that pretty much centered around Derek’s embarrassment and humiliation as a sport. The unspoken language needed work, but it worked when it came to pranks. It’s what they bonded over since at seventeen and thirteen, they don’t have much in common. Torturing Derek is a pastime even Katherine could get behind, and she didn’t like to do anything that required too much physical or mental exertion.

Anna and Jeremy depart with the rest of the kids, but they leave their plates. “We’ll watch the monsters,” Jeremy needlessly explains Allegra is the only one who acknowledges them, the rest of the adults are focused on Derek and Stiles.

“Sit.” Talia orders.

Derek reluctantly sits in an open chair at least four chairs away from Stiles. If you ask him it's a little over the top but whatever, nobody ever asks Stiles anything. He opens his mouth to show Derek all the food he still has in his mouth, but he doesn't look as disgusted as Stiles was hoping. So Stiles ups his game by opening and closing his mouth a few times so there's a sick, squiking sound. Derek just glares, his thick eyebrows lowering quite impressively. Stiles almost counts it as a win, but it won't count until Derek growls.

"If you do what I think you're gonna do I will bind your powers for a month!" Allegra hisses at Stiles from her seat across the table. On cue, Stiles gulps down his mouthful of food painfully, and tries to look as innocent as possible. Allegra doesn't look impressed, Peter's rolling his eyes and Talia looks as if a headache is coming on.

“Talk.” James says sternly. He’s looking more at Derek than Stiles, but it’s Stiles who speaks up first.

“Derek’s girlfriend’s name is Paige Kowalska, she’s in the tenth grade, and she’s Polish.” Stiles beams and then pushes back from his chair, “Now that we’ve talked it all out I’ll just be going…”

“Stiles sit down,” Peter says in a bored tone. His eyes shine in amusement though, so Stiles counts it as a win. And then he (stupidly) chances a glance over at Talia, and her glare is enough to have him wilting in his seat. The adults stared at the two boys, then turned back to look at one another. There seemed to be a debate going on between the four of them. Who would talk to who no doubt.

"She's just a girl dad, just a girl." Derek says quietly. To Stiles' ears, it seems as if he's pleading with his father. Like there's some other conversation going on that only the two of them understand. James melts immediately. He nods at his son once, and then looks at his wife imploringly, like he's begging her not to punish Derek. 

Which isn't fare cause if he tried the same shit James would either look at him with suspicion or aunt Talia would. He wants to say something, protest favoritism or nepotism, but Peter gives him a warning glare, and he quiets. He lets the adult deliberate in peace, and doesn't say anything when James eventually gets Talia to let Derek off the hook.

Now they had to decide who would talk to Stiles.

Stiles was a vicious thirteen year old, too smart for his own good and well aware of that fact. Uncle Peter and Uncle James were out of the running immediately. Both of them favored the boy too much. Peter because Stiles is a lot like him at that age, and James because he sees Claudia in every minute facial twitch.

They’d be putty in his hands in an hour.

Allegra looks pained at the thought of having to deal with Stiles on her own. She doesn’t really have a relationship with the family she had before she met Peter and married into the Hale’s. Any advice she gave is clouded by the fact that she has no experience with forgiving members of your family when they treat you the way John’s treated Stiles. Plus, aside from their shared magic, they try not to interact too much. Allegra says it's 'cause she doesn't have much patience for children, her own notwithstanding. Stiles says it's 'cause he did something unspeakable during their first magic lesson.

In the end it’s Talia who locks eyes with Stiles, and then nods her head in the direction of the back door.

He gets out of his seat without protest, and leads the way through a living filled with suspiciously silent werewolves, and out to the back porch. Stiles pauses there for a second, but at Talia’s prompting nudge, he steps off the porch and walks in the direction of the Preserve.

  


Talia walks next to him for a few silent, tense minutes, and Stiles can feel himself getting more and more tense at each step further into the dark of the forest. He knows these woods too well to truly be afraid of walking around at night, plus he’s walking with the town’s Alpha. He’s probably the most protected person in the world right now.

But he just _knows_ that Talia is gonna ask all these deep questions about why he won’t talk to his father and why he ratted out Derek. Questions that he really doesn’t want to answer if he can help it at all.

Talia takes him further and further into the woods, leading now with Alpha crimson eyes sweeping restlessly around their surroundings. Even though he’s not conscious of it at first, he notices immediately when they near the nemeton. The surprised and questioning glance he shoots up at Talia gets no response, and he’s left to silently follow her closer and closer to the sacred tree.

It isn’t until they’re sitting among the thick roots that have forced their way out of the ground that Talia says anything to him.

“I first met your mother at this tree.” She says with no preamble. She’s not looking at Stiles, gazing instead at the sprawling branches above them. Stiles waits for her to say more, not sure if he’s allowed to speak yet, but she lets those words lie in the quiet between them for a long time.

Stiles knows how Talia and Claudia met. Both of them the oldest daughters of the oldest families in Beacon Hills. Szymanski and Hale are two names that have always gone together. Talia and Claudia were always bound to know one another, friendship wasn’t expected, but familiarity was.

They were to be the protectors of Beacon Hills. Claudia, fresh outta high school, had kind of ruined that by marrying Stiles’ father. She didn’t tell John Stilinski for a long time about her family’s history and how she was bound to the town and it’s Alpha, Talia, and the town itself. His father wasn't an idiot though. The frequent visits, the fact that they were constantly in contact with one another no matter the distance between them, he connected the dots pretty quickly.

His father had accepted it, even came to visit with his mom a few times. John didn’t take to the pack immediately, and it took a while for them to get used to having a human among them, but by the time Stiles was on the way the earlier tensions between his father and the Hale’s had tempered as they realized that one another was going to be permanent in Claudia’s life.

That of course ended when his mom died. The funeral was only saved from a literal fight breaking out because of all the humans present during the wake. Werewolves and magic users get enough of a bad rep from their species alone. Succumbing to the stereotypes wouldn’t help it at all.

“You're mad because your father gave up on you.” Talia says softly. Stiles starts to protest, “He didn't even try-”

“Your father loves you. He tried Stiles, he wanted to keep you with him. John even called me a few times, he wanted to move to Beacon Hills. He had me looking at houses for the two of you.”

Stiles blinks up at his aunt in shock. He hadn't known that. But then again he was like, eight at the time. He remembers being angry a lot of the time after his mother's death, he can believe that he might have missed a few things. That doesn't excuse his father. He knew Talia took him from his dad ‘cause of the drinking, but John could have moved into town anyway.

“He tried to push off blame. He-” Stiles runs a hand through his hair and leans further into the comforting embrace of the nemeton. He feels frustrated because he knows what he feels, he knows how he feels. It’s just the fact that when he’s trying to communicate them nothing comes out sounding right.

“You’re gonna learn sooner or later Stiles, that not everyone can look at themselves and their actions, and deal with what their decisions led to. You’re father’s alcoholism lost him you, my pride lost me….my best friend.” for a moment it looks as if his aunt is about to cry, and he has a moment of panic because Uncle James isn’t here to tell him how to comfort her.

Luckily, he thinks, Talia seems to lock away whatever emotion that threatened to come out, before she looks down at Stiles. Her eyes are warm, and the red tint to them comforts him as much as the soft humming from the nemeton at his back does. She runs a hand through his hair, and he leans into the touch.

“You have every right to be upset Stiles, but ask yourself; would you be okay with pushing your father out of your life again?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm toying with the idea of bringing John back. A lot of people were really distraught when I wrote him out of the story and even though I held firm with sticking to the story I want to tell, this chapter has me reconsidering a lot.
> 
> So let me know with a comment what you think I should do.


	9. Cleaning with Katherine

Ultimately everything is solved the way most Hale family problems are solved; a family dinner. Talia graciously extends a dinner invite to John, and while she’s at it she gives Paige a call too.

Stiles thinks it's a terrible idea, Derek probably does too but he hasn't talked to Stiles since he outed him to his family. Which isn't to say Stiles never sees him, the Hale house is big but not that big. Meals and video game time is a little more awkward but he has six other cousins who don't have a problem with him at the moment so things are fine.

Talia chooses a minor family holiday to invite over John and Paige. It’s an excuse she says, for all the relatives in one house. As if the whole town isn't aware of their extended family life. Stiles thinks that lying about it is worse. If Paige isn’t ok with the idea of having your entire extended family living with you she probably won’t like the Hale’s too much. 

Stiles wouldn’t blame her or anything, even he thinks it’s a bit much to have all his aunts and uncles in one house, but he can’t imagine his life in any other way at this point.

Talia makes him call his father back that night to extend the invitation, and when John seems dubious she personally invites him herself. Then she gets Paige’s number for Derek and extends an invitation to her, before rounding out the night with calling Melissa McCall and inviting Scott over as well.

“So you can have someone in your corner,” Talia winks.

She winks! Talia Hale winked at Stiles! Like they were sharing some kind of secret. Like she knew what he knew, or more accurately what he didn’t knew - er...know, and they’re sharing that knowledge together.

He’s not even allowed to ask about it. When he finally emerges out of a wink induced shock the whole house is in a tizzy of organizing and cleaning and Uncle James is planning this mad multicourse meal as if he’s going to appear on Iron Chef. Although looking at him you’d think he was on his way to the guillotine.

Stiles spends the day leading up to the dinner on cleaning detail with Katherine. At thirteen and twelve respectively, they’re trusted just enough by the adults for the more strenuous chores, they’re just not particularly good at them. Kat learned pretty early on that if you didn’t want to do something ask one of their other cousins to teach them how and then walk away while they’re doing it. Stiles himself doesn't know how she does it, he thinks it's the eyes.

They’re all brown and doe like, long curled lashes cast shadows all the way down to her high cheek bones. She’s the picture of innocence and when she wants to she can look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She just pouts and it’s over. She’s birdlike just like her mother, but whereas Aunt Anna actually is as sweet as she seems to be, Kat is more cunning and mischievous. Even at twelve she realizes how pretty she is and uses it for what she wants.

Stiles would admire it if he didn’t fall victim to it so often. It’s so easy to fall in her trap that even Stiles finds himself washing dishes even though it’s her night or gathering up the laundry every Wednesday. He has no idea who thought it’d be smart to allow the two of them to do chores together. Stiles is the king of tricking his cousins to do his chores for him. He's gotten Derek to clean his room out of spite at least twice. 

Currently, Kat and Stiles are on laundry duty, going room to room canvassing for any dirty laundry the many children (and in Anna’s case adults) left lying around. Kat refuses on principle to touch anyone’s dirty laundry so the have a system worked out where Stiles uses a battered pair of tongs he found in a closet downstairs and Kat holds the laundry basket steady. 

It’s worked out well for Stiles, who gets to watch Kat freak out any time a particularly smelly shirt gets tossed her way. Until Kat starts asking questions.

“What do you think she looks like?” Kat asks. They’re on the third floor, Aunt Anna and Uncle Jeremy’s room is up here, along with Kieran’s and Laura’s. Kieran is supposed to sleep in the room across from his parents but he spends most of his time on the second floor with the twins. Which means they really only have to focus on the adults’ room and Laura’s. 

Should be simple enough to warrant no uncomfortable conversations but Kat never had a head for when things we appropriate to discuss. And not in the same way that Stiles didn’t have a head for it. 

For all his “intelligence” Stiles can be hopelessly oblivious to the tone and mood of a room. Kat on the other hand, is sharply aware of her surroundings and the people around her at all times. If she chooses to bring up an uncomfortable subject it’s because she wants to see you squirm.

“A lot like you actually, Hair like ebony wood, skin as pale as the first snow, and a mouth that’s prone to smirking.” Stiles speaks in a dry deadpan, taking care to graze Kat with her mother’s maternity bra as he did so.

She drops the laundry basket and smacks the bra away like it’s gonna bite her. “I see someone is taking their creative writing class seriously.”

“Like a heart attack, Kitten. Like a heart attack.” Kat scowls at the pet name, but doesn’t try to ask him about Paige again. They finish up in the adults room, and then move on to Laura’s.

Most of the kids in the house share a room, with the exception of Laura and Stiles. Kat and Cora are one room over from Stiles’. Ella and Emma are directly across the hall, and Derek shares with Kieran on the third floor. Although technically Kieran shares with the twins. Stiles doesn’t know why Laura doesn’t share a room with anyone, but he’s sure it has something to do with her one day being the Alpha and him being a Stilinski. But that won’t matter soon enough since Laura’s going to college soon. He himself is perfectly fine with his room on the second floor, but he knows for a fact that Kat and Cora are in a little mini competition for the new real estate. Then you have to factor in the new baby that’s gonna be here any minute now. Which means there’ll be a battle to see who can get out of rooming with the infant even though it’s pretty obvious that Kieran will end up rooming with the new addition.

Stiles honestly can’t wait for the ensuing war that will take place when Laura moves out. Even now, as he and Kat walk around in search of dirty clothes, he can see his cousin sizing the place up. No doubt imagining where she’ll put her bed or the handmade vanity she got for her birthday last June.

“I bet she’s some quiet nobody. I bet the only reason Derek even likes her is because she just lets him brood with company.” Kat starts taking slow, careful steps into Laura’s room. No doubt measuring the distance between the door and the window. Stiles watches from the doorway and rolls his eyes.

“I wouldn’t actually know. But I do know that I refuse to go into Laura’s room without permission.” Stiles hands the tongs over to his cousin, Kat snatches them from him with an arctic glare.

“Aww, scared you’ll touch Laura’s underwear?” Kat teases.

Stiles rolls his eyes, “No, I’m more scared of her punching me into the earth’s crust if she finds out I not only went into her room, but I also touched her underwear.” Laura was almost eighteen, and even at thirteen Stiles knew that there’s a lot of things girls have at a certain age that’s not okay for their little cousins to touch or even see. Stiles has seen the color of her bra straps okay! That’s more than enough for him to know he doesn’t want to go anywhere near her dirty clothes.

When Kat turns around to pick up a forgotten sock, she continues her guessing. “Wait what if she’s one of his fangirls!” She turns back to Stiles with her dark eyes bright with scandalized delight.

Not following Stiles frowns at her, “What are you talking about?”

She sighs, disappointed he didn’t follow her impossible leap, “Well he plays basketball right? He’s like the star...quarterback-”

“Point guard, but continue.” Stiles automatically corrects

Kat doesn’t miss a beat, “He’s the star and girls like him so what if she’s like one of his basketball groupies?” 

Stiles frowns as he thinks it over. Beacon Hills High had an amazing basketball season last year, most of that thanks to Derek. And yes, there had been a considerable number of girls in the stands wearing lip gloss and holding up signs with Derek’s number, but he seemed to not really pay any attention to them. Then again what does Stiles know. He’d grown past the age of being forced to attend Derek’s games. Especially now that he’s been focusing on lacrosse. A lot could have changed. Maybe a girl had a particular brand of cherry flavored lip gloss and a glitter marker sign that caught Derek’s eyes.

Stranger things have happened.

“Okay…” Stiles drawls, Kat immediately perks up. “But you know how Derek is, no girl could get close to him just based off her liking the way he plays basketball. He’s the type to like a deeper connection.” They both rolled their eyes and pretended to gag. Derek Hale was a pain in the ass but also a hopeless romantic.

Kat wasn’t one to be put off so easily, “But didn’t you say she played the cello? Maybe their practices overlapped and when they were waiting for their rides they decided to strike up a conversation?”

Stiles shakes his head and laughs, “This isn’t a Judy Blume novel. Have you seen Derek talk to anyone in his class? Have you seen Derek talk to anyone in town?”

Kat immediately deflated, “Crap. You’re right.”

They finished up their sweep of Laura’s room and went on to the next one. It wasn’t until they actually walked up to the door of the next room, that they remembered this was Derek’s room.

“No but seriously what does she look like?” Kat needles, and Stiles curses the adults that made her his cleaning partner because he can’t exactly ditch her without getting into trouble for it. Stiles knows Kat just won’t drop it, he has information she wants and Kat’s pretty well versed in getting what she wants in a house with seven kids.

“She looks like you honestly. Dark hair and dark eyes. I hardly ever see the girl if I’m being honest.” Kat narrows her eyes at his answer, and for a second he worries she’s trying to stare into his soul. It’s scary being the sole focus of Kat’s attention. It so rarely happens since she likes to keep to herself more often than not.

“Fine,” she sighs. Before Stiles can even relax, she’s pushing the tongs into his chest. “But now you have to clean Derek’s room.” She smirks when his jaw drops.

“What! Derek hates me I can’t go in there.” Kat snorts at that.

“Yeah, sure. He totally hates you. Now go in there and be thorough, wouldn’t want Paige to know her boyfriend leaves his dirty underwear on the floor now would we?” 

“If that’s sarcasm Kat it’s not funny.” Stiles spits. His cousin merely shrugs, but the smirk never truly leaves her face.

“Oh I’m not being sarcastic, dear cousin o’ mine. Now go in there and give it a real deep clean.” Stiles is already glaring at her but when she punctuates her sentences with a wink, he just about bursts.

“You can’t be serious. You know Derek has been itching for a reason to punch me since dinner. Let’s try real hard not to give him a reason to, shall we?”

Kat slaps a finely boned hand on his shoulder and grips tight. With her free hand, she simultaneously twists the knob and uses Stiles to open the door. Effectively pushing him loudly and clumsily inside.

“Oh I’m serious, Sparky. Like a heart attack.” Before Stiles can even correct his balance Kat has already shut the door and trapped him in there. Once he regains his balance he glares at the wood of the closed door, thankful he doesn’t have laser eyes cause right about now he’d be totally abusing that power.

He’s honestly not even surprised she did this, which is just sad. Even sadder is the noise he makes when he realizes he’s not alone.

“Sparky?” Ellarie and Emma speak at the same time from opposite ends of the room. He feels a headache start immediately as he tries to figure out which twin is which in about five seconds.

“What are you two doing here?” Stiles asks. It’s easier to address them as a duo than to separate them into individuals. If they know you can’t tell them apart they’ll mess with you until you start pulling out your hair.

Ella (or Emma) narrows her eyes and shrugs, “Nothing….”

Emma (or Ella) shares her twin's expression and adds a slightly cocked head, “What about you?”

Stiles narrows his eyes as well, and there’s just the three of them, staring at one another through narrowed eyes, all of them suspicious. The twins could be doing anything. Cleaning the windows like Uncle Peter told them to, stuffing leaves in Derek's mattress, filling all the shoes in the house with chocolate pudding (again). Who knows. Stiles does know, however, that the only way to remain safe from their antics was to join them.

So it's no surprise that Stiles is the first to break, “I won’t tell if you let me join you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I can't remember if I gave background on the Hale family and the extended Hale family. Talia, Peter, and Anna are all siblings and blood Hale's. James, Talia's husband, took his wife's last name (not uncommon for someone marrying an Alpha) and Anna hyphenated her last name (Hale-Borisova) when she married Jeremy. Allegra took Peter's last name.
> 
> Laura Eileen Hale  
> Derek Joseph Hale  
> Cora Jane Hale  
> Katherine Eleonora Hale-Borisova  
> Kieran Elijah Hale-Borisova  
> Ellarie Frederique Hale  
> Emma Georgina Hale
> 
> In case it wasn't obvious I'm total fangirl trash without even realizing it.


	10. Evil Doings with Ella and Emma

The twins share a quick blue eyed glance, and then turn to him with a firm nod. He’s in.

The twins don’t offer much in the way of an explanation of what they’re doing, but they hand him a few dry looking sticks that make his skin tingle they’re so infused with magic. There no explanation, the three of them are pretty familiar with magic at this point. He nods when they instruct him to go downstairs and help Uncle James “cook”.

That’s exactly how they say it too, blue eyes staring into his soul, curly sandy brown hair haloed from the light coming through the window. Their words are full of _meaning_ and intent and Stiles has to wonder how two seven year olds can be so utterly terrifying.

He picks up an unoffending sock so Katherine won’t ask questions, and exits Derek’s room as quickly as possible. There’s a kind of unspoken expectation that he’ll keep his mouth shut or else, but the twins don’t say anything as they silently watch him close the door.

On the other side, Katherine is nowhere to be found. All that’s left behind is the laundry basket and tongs. With a sigh, Stiles drops the sock into the basket, and carefully creates a spell to encase the twigs so that they’re suspended in the air. It takes little to no concentration to keep the twigs floating along with him as he makes his way downstairs, and he manages to finish the rest of his chore without anyone questioning the fact that he has a bunch of sticks following him around the house.

Kieran almost asks, brown eyes wide and curious as the clear bubble bounces gently in the air. He’s supposed to be cleaning up the living room, but there’s still toys and shoes everywhere, and Kieran’s relaxing on the couch while the mornings cartoons dance across the family tv. Stiles raises an eyebrow, and a mutual, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” passes between the two of them.

Keiran goes back to his show, and Stiles goes to the laundry room to deposit the dirty clothes he’d scrounged up.

In a family filled with werewolves and magic users it’s kind of hard to be surprised or shocked by anything you see. Case in point, when he finally let himself into the kitchen to do his part in the twins’ prank, he found his Aunt Anna and Uncle Peter doing yoga in front of the breakfast nook.

For some background, the Hale kitchen is huge, unnaturally so, one might say. It’s big enough to fit a breakfast nook, an L shaped island, a deep freezer (used mostly during hunting season and holidays), two fridges, an attached mudroom equipped with spare clothes in case of accidental shifts, an armoire used expressly for magical ingredients, an eight burner stove, and it kind of goes on and on.

Despite the kitchen practically overflowing with things, there’s still enough room for activities. Like yoga with Uncle Peter and Aunt Anna.

Aunt Anna’s in her final trimester and despite loving pregnancy she was pretty much done with being pregnant. She couldn’t use magic because there was no telling if the baby would be a magic user like herself or a werewolf like Uncle Jeremy. She couldn’t participate during the full moon, which is an Event in the Hale household. Even Scott came over to participate. 

So yeah, Stiles can understand her wanting to get this baby out of her. But yoga? In the kitchen of all places? With Peter here it’s gonna be nearly impossible to get those stupid twigs mixed in with the food. He knows all of Stiles’ tricks. He _taught_ Stiles all of his tricks. If he offers to help Uncle James, Peter will watch him like a hawk to figure out why he suddenly decided to volunteer to help out.

Uncle James is frazzled enough that he hasn’t even looked up to see Stiles come into the room. Hell, forget Stiles, he hasn’t noticed Cora carrying in taxidermied animals of various shapes and sizes behind his back either. This would be a cakewalk if not for Peter. 

Stiles is so frustrated that his magic starts sparking, sharp, uncontrollable bursts of light and power that has him shaking his hands out in pain. Anna looks at him warily in downward dog pose.

“You okay, sweetie?” She asks thickly.

Stiles nods once, but then hisses when his magic once again sparks uncontrollably, burning the tips of his fingers painfully. Anna unfolds from her pose and gracefully leaps to her feet. In a few short steps she's standing in front of him, holding his hands and studying them carefully. She's unconcerned with the sparks shooting up, even as Stiles himself winces and whimpers with each new burst. 

“Your Spark is agitated for some reason, I'm gonna go to the Hut to get that suppressor Ally and I keep locked up.” With a gentle kiss to his smoking fingers, Anna was off, waddling out into the forest in yoga pants and a sports bra.

Peter took this as the obvious break it was, and began cleaning up the workout equipment. Stiles watched his uncle warily, quickly circling towards the bubbling stovetop where Uncle James looked a frazzled mess. How could he distract one Uncle, and keep the other from catching on? Distracting Peter first is the obvious choice. He’s way more suspicious, more cunning than James. If Stiles tried anything Peter would be on him in minutes.

Plus James was currently a mess. His read hair stuck up haphazardly on his head, his usually fair skin was half shaven and covered in red splotches. There’s no way he’ll even notice what Stiles does while frazzled like this. Case in point, Cora was still surreptitiously putting up pictures of hunting scenes and mounting miniature bear, moose, and buck heads. Aunt Talia never much had a head for decorating, but James would be livid. 

If her were paying attention.

Stiles thought about throwing Cora under the bus, pointing out her antics to Uncle Peter and essentially catching Uncle James’ notice as well. Cora was a known runner in the house, she’d try to make a break for it. Thus, giving Stiles ample opportunity to deposit the dry bark and book it to the other side of the house.

Stiles opens his mouth, pulling on Uncle James’ yellow spattered apron, and is effectively cut off by Ella and Emma running into the room and into their father’s arms. They’re talking animatedly and bouncing to and fro, fully monopolizing all of Peter’s attention.

“Yes, Stiles?” James is running a flour dusted hand over his face.

“Cora’s been redecorating.” Stiles blurts and points incriminatingly at his cousin.

“Hey!” Cora cries. The look of shock and innocence is somewhat overshadowed because she is in fact hanging up a taxidermied coyote. Behind her gruesome and horrible painted hunting scenes depict wolves killing sheep, wolves mauling children, and a realistic looking wolf nibbling on a lamb.

“What did I tell you about dead animals in the house?” James shouts, he roughly pulls off his apron and stomps towards Cora.

She glares at Stiles before turning to her father pleadingly, “But I didn't even kill these ones!” Cora almost pouts, almost stomps her foot in anger. But James gives her a thunderous glare and she freezes immediately, “Are you telling me you brought fresh kills in the house!”

While Cora begins to argue that you can't technically call it fresh since it took her half the day to drag the deer carcass through the forest, and the twins occupy Peters attention, Stiles seizes his moment. 

He leaps forward and opens the lid of the first pot his hands can reach. It’s some sort of white paste, gravy he thinks. The twigs dissolve almost instantly, and after stirring a few times the gravy looks like he'd never touched it all.

“Stiles!” Uncle James barks from across the room. Stiles jumps, thinking he's been caught in the act until he realizes that his Uncle is still yanking things off the walls while Cora pouts petulantly by his side.

“Take your cousins into the living and _behave_. Peter and I are gonna finish up with dinner while Talia goes to pick your father up from the bus station.” James yanks viciously at a mounted board head, “I don't want to hear a peep out of any child until our guests have a arrived.”

Stiles shrugs, and waits for Cora, Ella, and Emma to follow him out of the kitchen. The second the four of them are out of James’ line of sight, Cora takes off running. 

“You're gonna get yours, Stilinski, just you wait.” She spits around elongated teeth.

“Bring it Hale. We both know you can't do anything tonight.” Stiles drawls lazily. Cora collects vendettas like stamps, by dinner tonight he's sure Kat or Derek will do something to piss her off and she'll be plotting their deaths as well.

Cora sneers before running up the stairs thunderously, her tiny feet pounding each wooden stair as if each step had messed with her personally.

Stiles rolled his shoulders, today was awful. He couldn't wait until Scott got here. They could zone out together on the Wii until dinner. Maybe he'd even be able to get Aunt Talia and Uncle James to let the kids eat outside. The family dining table was huge but with three extra place settings things are sure to be tight. The kids all eating outside would be Stiles’ gift to the adults.

The fact that he'd promised Scott to show him the cool new things he'd learned to do with his magic had nothing to do with it.

Stiles is pretty sure Aunt Talia expected all the kids to dress well for the dinner, so he resolved to go up to his room and hunt for a button down. Finding clean clothes shouldn't be too hard, despite Kat going AWOL he'd managed to cover every room in the house. There's bound to be a shirt in there good enough for dinner. 

Before he can make his way up the stairs, the twins are suddenly standing in front of him. It takes every ounce of willpower he has not to let out a high pitched shriek of surprise, but he can’t seem to stop himself from flinching defensively. The twins smile, like they know he actually wanted to scream bloody murder. It’s a definite Peter smile and Stiles curses his uncle for every procreating. 

“Where are you going?” Ella, he’s sure this time it’s Ella, says.

“We’re not done.” Emma finishes.

He glares at both of them and shakes his head, “No, no way. I’m done. You knew your dad and Aunt Anna was down there. Why send me on a mission in a area that was chock full of the enemy?”

The twins don’t deny or confirm that they knew that so many adults were in the kitchen at once, but they slight shrug of nonchalance they share is enough of a sign to Stiles that they would have made him do it whether the kitchen was deserted or not.

“There’s still work to be done, Sparky.” Emma scolds.

“No resting.” Ella finishes.

Stiles folds his arms over his chest and looks down on their blonde little heads, “I quit. That was too close a call and you both know it.”

Without hesitation they blurt out in unison, “We’ll tell Aunt Anna who really set fire to the hut last summer.”

“I’ll tell your mother that you two tried to summon a demon dog last Christmas.” Stiles counters.

Their eyes widen in surprise, they hadn’t thought he knew about that. Who did they think put the damn thing back where they found it. Demon dogs are not a toy, you get those things for life. It had been hell tracking the thing, and he still owed Kat and Laura a favor for tracking it for him. The twins should be lucky he didn’t tell on them immediately.

They three of them find themselves at a stalemate, so they stand there staring at one another. An uncomfortable amount of time goes by before they’re interrupted by a cheer, birdlike voice saying, “Oh, there you are!”

Aunt Anna waddles up with a foul smelling vial and a smile on her face. The twins glare at him, and he takes it to mean, “This isn’t over.” They place pudgy hands on their Aunts tummy reverently before skipping off further into the house. Stiles hopes they realize they’ll have to get in line if they want to murder him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super late, and should have been posted two weeks ago Buuuuuuut. I had finals and then my work schedule got hectic so updates are coming a little slow.


	11. One Normal Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've really been listening to some of the feedback from you guys, and this chapter is directly influenced from an idea one of you guys had. This chapter and the one's before it. I'm gonna start moving into Stiles' training at some point, and actually getting to the Derek/Stiles portion of this fic. I know I said it would be a slow burn but I feel like I'm being particularly vicious.

When Stiles enters his room post shower, Aunt Allegra is sitting on his bed. She stares down at Stiles with an amused but stern glint in her eyes. He absolutely does _not_ shriek like a soprano and he absolutely does _not_ almost moon his aunt in the process. He simply releases energy, from his diaphragm. It’s a magical….exercise. Aunt Ann taught it to him, obviously.

When Stiles recovers (both his dignity and his heart rate) she’s trapped him in his room, fresh from the shower, and recovering from his little mini heart attack. It’s not everyday he turns on the light in his room to find his scariest aunt sitting on his bed. His only saving grace is the fact that she hadn’t laughed once. Allegra is, of course, not laughing because she’s fixed him with a look that says, “I practically raised you and shame my legacy this way?”

Interestingly enough he’s seen that exact same look on Kat’s face whenever they play Mario Kart together. It’s eerie seeing it on his Aunt's sculpted brown face. The green in her eyes is particularly vicious when he remembers that he is still kinda sorta flashing the Stilinski family jewels. He scrambles to readjust his towel, and then tries to look “casual”.

If casual is a scrawny thirteen year old leaning against his dresser (still covered in Buzz Lightyear stickers from when he was nine) then Stiles is nailing it.

It had been touch and go there for a while, the question of whether or not he’ll die from fright or the fact that his aunt is staring at him while his body is trudging through the book of puberty. He’s still on the earlier chapters and keeps getting distracted by the fact that Derek doesn’t even have to _try_. That boy went from his scrawny cousin who popped his claws during a scary movie to the hot sculpted guy who always gets the girl in movies. Everyone in this family is hot in some way (except Stiles but, you know, tiny violin), so in theory the thought of having a hot woman in his room sounds awesome. 

In _theory_ , because in practicality said hot woman changed his diapers and chased him through the house during bath time because he’s always been a runner. Said hot woman is also the aunt who’s currently holding out clothes to him that he knows didn’t come from his closet. When Stiles recovers enough to raise an eyebrow at the new digs, his aunt rolls her eyes.

“Do you think Talia and James are dumb enough to let you kids have your nice clothes in your rooms?” When green eyes re-land on him, Stiles shrugs exaggeratedly. To be perfectly honest he doesn’t know where half his clothes come from. They’ve always kind of just appeared in his drawers and then disappeared mysteriously when he outgrew them. It was a system he didn’t question and once he started doing laundry for the household cared even less about.

Clothes were always getting replaced or mended or handed down in the Hale household. And not even because the family couldn’t afford to give everyone in the family new clothes at a whim. The Hales could keep every kid in this house flush in Gucci diapers and Louboutin booties if they really wanted to. But it didn’t exactly make sense for a bunch of werewolves to discard old clothes because they no longer fit, and buy really expensive new clothes that might get damaged while shifting.

Plus, _pack_ means closeness and scent sharing. Why throw out a perfectly good shirt when you can just give it to the next child down and keep the pack scent going?

They had a pretty good system for how clothes get passed down too. Unfortunately Derek was the first kid getting hand me downs and the system wasn’t put in place until Laura started wearing bras and skirts. So for a good portion of the family photo album, Derek wears Barbie jeans and princess t-shirts. Stiles, the only boy directly under him (and thus next in line for hand me downs) was saved from that indignity because he burned most of his clothes with his Spark so Uncle Jeremy took him shopping to replace them. So no jeans with the _B_ stitched onto the ass for him. 

Allegra thrusts his “good” clothes at him with a very stern stare, “I want these returned to me in the same state I’m giving them to you,”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “That might be a little hard since I have the twins and Cora out for my blood tonight.”

“Don’t forget Derek.” Allegra adds helpfully.

Stiles shoots his aunt a particularly shocked look and she rolls her eyes. “Werewolf or not you and your cousins aren’t all that good at keeping your little battles between each other.” She shrugs, “Plus I was there, you threw him under the bus to protect your hide.”

Stiles shrugs, “It’s cause I knew Aunt Talia would burst a blood vessel when she found out I hung up on my dad.” with a startling amount of speed, Stiles shimmies into his underwear while trying to keep his towel covering his important bits. This results in a lot of not so funny wiggling and struggling on his part but Allegra is nice enough not to laugh.

Of course the reason she’s not laughing _could_ be because she’s rolling her eyes and giving him the, "I raised you" face.

“You deserve whatever Derek gives you too, and we both know this.” Allegra speaks softly.

“He’s always in my business! He’s-”

“Your cousin and packmate who cares about you and wants to see you happy.” Allegra interrupts.

Stiles rolls his eyes, he’s heard this one before. It all comes back to pack at the end of the day. Who cares what the human wants? 

“He’s not even my cousin! He’s just this dirtbag who insists on making my life horrible. It’s not like it’s bad enough I’m human and alone, he has to come and mess with me too!” Stiles kicks at his discarded towel in frustration. He’s so frustrated his Spark is going crazy. Shooting of little licks of light and heat, burning his fingers painfully in the process.

“Stiles stop that right now, you know that’s not what we’re trying to do! You’re not the only human in the house you know.” Allegra reaches out to stop Stiles’ hands from angry swiping at his face. He’s not crying, not at all. It’s not like it’s totally unfair that Derek always gets away with being a nosy asshole while Stiles still gets grounded for defending himself.

“Stiles,” Allegra sighs. As his mentor and unofficial coven leader, she gets these glimmers of his feelings. Anna as well, but Anna’s a lot better at ignoring what she feels from others. Allegra has this insane need to fix it before it gets to the point where it’ll bother _her_. She’s not usually this invasive about it, and Stiles wants the ground to swallow him whole.

He hates this part of living in a houseful of magical beings and werewolves. There’s no chance at privacy, at all. Before he can even do anything, there’s a parent using their super hearing to monitor him. Before he can play with anything by himself, there’s a cousin listening in on him and telling on him to their parent when they don’t get their way. He get’s it they’re pack and pack doesn’t need to have secrets (or boundaries for that matter), but sometimes it’s suffocating.

Sometimes, Stiles wants his emotions to only be for him. He doesn’t want a well meaning parent figure or a nosy cousin sniffing out his emotions before he’s ready to deal with them. Sometimes he wants to play around with Scotty without having to share his one friend with his cousins. He shares *so much* with his cousins. 

There’s no point in him buying himself a video game because the second it's out of the box it’s open season for all of his cousins. He can’t have Uncle James make him the special ooey gooey brownies he only makes when Stiles is seriously sick, without Cora coming along and eating them all. Or the twins casting some spell on him so that he can only speak in limericks. Or Derek stalking him around the house and making “helpful” suggestions on how he could be less of a fuckup.

“I’m the only human who feels suffocated by all this? I’m the only person who thinks that maybe, as the kid without any parents I need someone to be on my side for once?” Stiles stops himself from snatching his dress shirt out of his aunt’s hands in anger. His anger knocking around in her head is bad enough, she won’t stand for him actively taking it out on her. He struggles with the shirt to keep from looking at his aunt's face, but then he hears the fabric stretch so he stops. He throws it down and stomps his way over to his desk.

Stiles’ desk is riddled with books and notebooks full of his own notes, schematics, things he’d been tinkering with while bored of spell work and research. Just by looking at it, he can tell that one of his cousins have been in here, messing around on his desk, because in pack what’s the point of boundaries? Stiles and the twins have been barred from using magic in the house, but that doesn’t mean they don’t bend those rules a bit. Like spell work for instance. It requires speaking and smells that will definitely attack the wrath of a werewolf parent. And they release a subtle burst of energy that alerts other magic users of its casting. So they mutually agreed that if all three of them are cool keeping the others’ secrets then they wouldn’t do any spell work.

But that didn’t bar spellbooks, or grimoires, or bestiaries.

“Stiles,” Allegra says softly, “Stiles,” she starts again, with more power in her voice. A command then, from his mentor. Reluctantly, Stiles meets her gaze. “I hadn’t realized you felt smothered and alone, I hadn’t realized that you were feeling like your privacy was being invaded. To be honest, none of us had even given much thought to the fact that you are the odd man out in the parent department.”

Stiles waited for a ‘but’, usually when adults started out agreeing with him a ‘but’ came next. A ‘but’ where they asked him to stick it out because this is what family means. A ‘but’ where they tell him to get the hell out then, and move back in with his alcoholic father. 

Allegra seems to study him as she thinks over what she’s going to say next. He’s not prepared when her voice turns softer instead of stern, “Maybe, it’s a good thing your dad is coming back into your life. I, of all people, understand your reluctance to let family back into your life when they left it in the first place. If it was up to me, I would be furious with your father. I’d spit in his face and hex his life if he abandoned me how your father left you. I would-”

“Good thing you’re not me, then. Huh, Aunt Anna!” Stiles interrupts frantically. There’s a reason Allegra is his scariest aunt. 

Anna arrives in the doorway swiftly, with a narrow glare pointed at Allegra. “You leave my nephew alone, Ally. Don’t make me come in there.” Allegra rolls her eyes and waves her sister-in law out the door.

Turning back to Stiles, her voice is once again soft as she begins speaking again, “I’m just trying to say I understand your reluctance to trust your father with a spot in your life. I understand you being tired of the constant feeling of eyes and ears on your every movement and emotion. I’ll talk to Talia about it first, and maybe your father, but I think it’s time we started treating you like an…. ambassador.”

Stiles stares at his aunt in confusion, “For what?”

“You know, like an ambassador from another country? Another kingdom?” Allegra shrugs away her moment of distraction, “Basically we afford you the same care and love we give our children, but give you the privacies a guest would have.”

Stiles isn’t quite understanding where his aunt is going with this, but he nods because he’s still shirtless and he’s feeling really vulnerable at the moment.

“Basically I’ll soundproof your room, _not_ Anna.” Allegra stares him down like she expects him to argue with her on this but Stiles nods quickly to let her know he wholeheartedly agrees with her. Anna’s magic is not at it’s best right now, he didn’t want her to accidentally amplify every noise in his room or something equally horrendous.

“I’ll get Talia to tell the little pups they are forbidden from entering your room. Peter and I will enforce it if anyone thinks this is a joke.” Allegra nod seriously, “And I’m gonna get Peter to call some of his contacts to come down here and teach you magic from here on out.”

Stiles starts in alarm, “Wait you don’t want to teach me magic anymore?” The thoughts of anyone but his aunts teaching him magic sends an unpleasant feeling to the pit of his stomach.

Allegra chucks his chin affectionately, “We both know that my magic and your magic a very different beasts. I’ve taught you all I remember from Claud, and you know Anna won’t be doing any teaching until we figure out the babies species. That’ll take too long and we really have to start ratcheting up your training.”

Stiles nods, but he doesn’t understand why so much has to change. He’s fine with the soundproofed room, and the thought of his cousins actually banned from his room is nice too. But he didn’t actually mean what he thought about everyone having a parent besides him. That had been...that had just been…..

“Alright I’m gonna go talk to Tal, you finished getting dressed and line up with the rest of the pups. Oh,” Allegra stopped suddenly, as if a thought had just occurred to her, “I’m gonna get James and Peter to have a talk with Derek. You’re right, he’s not really your cousin, but he needs to acknowledge that your business is yours and he has no right to interfere.”

There’s a really meaningful look she’s giving him, really meaningful. It would be really cool if he actually understood what that look meant. If not at least to clear up his confusion then at least to give him something to say back to her?

Oh, no. Not needed apparently, she leaves with a salute and a wolfish grin. Stiles is left in her wake super confused and half naked.


	12. (s)He's Not Thinking of Me (part one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few of you mentioned how difficult it was to tell the difference when I switched perspectives, so to clear that up I'm going to start marking who's speaking in **bold**. Unless stated explicitly, assume that perspective not marked in bold are from Stiles' point of view.

Stiles comes downstairs in a blue button up and grey slacks. His unruly hair is slicked back with a mixture of water and Derek’s hair gel. He sees that his cousins are lined up like the Von Trapps. Ella and Emma dressed in pretty, poofy dresses at one end and Laura looking murderous in a modest dress at the other. Derek is beside her, dressed in a button up similar to Stiles’ in everything but color. Kieran, over near the twins, is in a similar boat.

“I see the 'scare the new human by making her think we’re singing Germans' plan is underway. I was so sure I voted against this-”

“Wait till you see McCall, Stilinski, you’re gonna thank my mom for picking out your clothes.” Cora hissed not so covertly under her breath. Stiles sent her a scowl but didn’t retort. He got in his spot between her and Derek, and prayed that Scott showed up soon. And not, for the reason that Cora likes to pretend to think.

There was _one_ little mishap between Stiles and Scott, one that they as best friend swore to never speak of again. Unfortunately Cora misheard the situation and no amount of Stiles and Scott insisting otherwise will get her to drop what she heard.

“Why would Scott and Stiles care about each other’s clothes? They’ve taken baths together.” Derek snorts.

Stiles shoots him a vicious glare, “Okay we all know that that was because _someone_ led us into a skunks path. There was no way Aunt Talia would let us stink up two bathrooms!”

Derek sneered down at him, “Didn’t you hear Der,” Cora starts, “Stiles and Scott are in love!” she makes kissie faces and leans into Stiles' personal space. Its by the will of his hunger and anticipation for James' food alone that keeps him from pinching her tongue between his fingernails.

“Geeze Cora, I already told you nothing happened!” Stiles holds himself back from decking her, they aren’t little kids anymore. If he hits her he’s an asshole, plus if she hits back he’ll probably have to amputate a limb.

Cora eloquently sticks her tongue out at him, parents are within hearing range he figures, and then goes back to fidgeting in her dress. It’s eerily similar to Laura’s, and Stiles looks down the line to see that Kat is in a similar state. Only it seems she’s take a pair of scissors to her dress. Hacked off the puffy sleeves and somehow made it into an off the shoulder dress.

Stiles was actually born half magic, and he doesn’t think he could ever pull something like that off.

Kat’s modifications are obviously a part of Laura’s annoyance. She keeps looking over at the twelve year old and huffing dramatically. He’s close enough to hear her mumble something indistinct, but she purposefully keeps her voice low enough that only werewolves could hear. Which he gathers by the Beta gold glare Kat shoots Laura’s way every time she starts mumbling. He can feel the tension mounting between all his cousins (except for Ella and Emma, unsurprisingly) so he’s thankful when Peter walks by and stops to stare at them.

He’d obviously been on his way to do something in the kitchen, since that’s the direction he was headed in, but he stops to look and take in their appearances.

“This is creepy.” He winces sympathetically. When he lets their appearance sink in a little longer he begins to laugh,“I can’t believe Talia did this to all of you. I was so sure she’d only punish Derek and Stiles.”

“What did we do?” Stiles and Derek exclaim in unison. 

Stiles looks at Derek in disbelief, “Let's _never_ do that again. I'm afraid that if I agree with you I'll break out into hives.”

Turning back to his uncle before Stiles can see his face, Derek clenches his fist. Stiles can tell that he’s angry in part because he can’t think of anything to say, and it’s not like Stiles gives him any time to say anything either. When Derek opens his open to retort Stiles turns back to Peter with a wince.

“Help a nephew out? There’s gotta be a way to get out of looking like the Brady Bunch.” Stiles plucked pointedly at the collar of his pressed shirt. He understands they’re trying to make a good impression on Derek’s girlfriend, but this is ridiculous. It’s not like _Stiles_ is trying to date her.

Peter hums, “I suppose, that since Talia is off at the bus stop picking up your father, and James is in the kitchen trying to salvage our meal…”He trailed off, and Stiles could feel every one of his cousins leaning forward in anticipation. Peter was always the adult to go to when it came to breaking the rules.

“I suppose I could get lost up in the attic looking for old photo albums. I’m sure your father would like to see what he’s missed and Paige would just love to know about Derek’s stint with purple hair.” Peter winks at them, and then casually turns back the way he’d been walking.

“Yes!” the kids exclaim. In an instant Kieran is naked, like. birthday suit naked. He’s naked too fast, way too fast. Stiles blinks and then suddenly he's getting an eyeful of way more than he ever wanted to see of the little boy. Kieran is naked like he’d already known his uncle would give permission to shirk some rules, and didn’t even bother buttoning everything up. 

Stiles is impressed, and disgusted. “Dude, fair warning before you flash us all!” Stiles belatedly covers his eyes. Between his fingers he can see Kieran beaming at him. The twins begin to giggle, Laura laugh’s a little too, Kat looks like she's ready to disown them all. Soon they’re all kind of giddily laughing, feeling relaxed for the first time all day. The adults were stressed and in turn stressing out the kids. Tonight is the first time a human not already in the loop with how things go down with the supernatural would be among them. It mattered a lot to them that they made a good impression.

“I’m gonna go change before any of the adults catch us.” Laura announces when they’re laughter crests, and Cora nods along. The sisters both start for the stairs and when they notice Kat not following along they turn back to her.

“Don’t you wanna change too?” Cora asks. 

Kat shrugs, “I look good. Why fix what isn’t broke?” The girls all shrug, and Laura and Cora go upstairs to change. 

When Stiles looks around to see which of his cousins are left, and who he can challenge to a quick, pre-dinner round of video games, his gaze lands on Derek. Kieran was off in the house, being naked somewhere, Kat was most likely in the family study, and the twins had vanished into thin air. Stiles can’t actually remember the last time he and Derek had been alone like this.

No wait, he can. The other day, when he’d gotten that call from his father. He’d been angry and running away from the issue while Derek followed him around the forest like a pest. Then he’d ratted him out during dinner and had been dodging him ever since. Stiles is just about to jokingly point this out, the fact that they're never alone together, when he notices just how murderous Derek's eyebrows have gotten. They're so low over his eyes their casting a shadow. He looks pink with anger under the olive tone of his skin. Stiles immediately flinches, obviously Derek's pissed.

“Thanks for that by the way, you’ve yet again managed to ruin something I was looking forward to.” Derek growled.

Stiles shot him an incredulous look, “You were looking forward to _this_? Aren’t most teenagers supposed to want to keep their girlfriend and they parents far away from one another?”

Derek sighed, “Paige was looking forward to meeting them, and so was I. But not until I was ready.”

Stiles snorts, “Well if you hadn’t forced my hand at dinner that night-”

Derek's eyebrows did a series of complicated acrobatics before resting as close to his hair line as possible,"I wasn't actually planning on saying anything! I wasn't even thinking about it! I was gonna try to talk you into seeing him again."

Stiles snorted, "As if I'd listen to anything you tell me to do."

Derek clench his jaw, and Stiles worries for a second that he might punch him. It's been awhile since Derek physically assaulted him for being a prick, but not long enough that he's forgotten how much it hurts to be punched in the arm by him.

"I was gonna bring her here eventually, I just..."

When Derek paused, Stiles continued on, "What's with you two anyway?" Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles' question, "No seriously how did that even happen? You've never had a girlfriend before, I've never even seen you look at the girls at school before man. So what makes Paige so special?"

Derek's expression shuts down, "That's none of your business."

"Wha-" Stiles stutters.

"You should be focused on what you're gonna say to your dad, he'll be here any minute you know."

Yeah, I know. Thanks." the frosty bite to Stiles tone was not ignored.

“Stiles that’s your father... and I remember you always going on and on about how much you missed him and how much it hurt you that he never-”

Stiles cut Derek off right there, “I _never_ _told you_ that. How do you know that!” There was a heat rising in his chest, his fingertips turned red with heat. But he was in _control_ , he wouldn’t let his magic get out of _control_.

Derek looked sheepish and curled in on himself at the intensity of Stiles’ glare, “I-I-I…” he stuttered. When Stiles advanced on him Derek stumbled over his feet to back up, knocking into end tables and toys.

“Why are you always butting into my life!” Flames erupted from Stiles finger tips. They cut out and restarted, stuttered and died. Stiles shook out his hands in anger, sending little embers to burn through rugs and the wood floor.

Derek seemed to steel himself and stood to his full height, “Stiles, stop right now! You’re gonna mess the up the house.”

The flames restarted with an intensity, “I’m not some mess for you to clean up! I’m not your responsibility. Why are you always treating me like a burden?” Stiles forced himself to focus on the fire on his skin, his shirt was already a lost cause but he could probably save his slacks. Derek wasn’t worth this, he wasn’t worth ruining his good clothes for.

“We used to be friends, I wouldn’t have had to take care of you if you didn’t look at me….look at me-” Derek tries to match Stiles’ intensity, but falters when it comes to finishing his sentence. Stiles waits, the flames dancing along his skin seem to dampen, his powers waning as his attention wavers and refocuses on Derek. Keen, amber brown eyes burn through Derek like hot coals, before Stiles sighs tiredly.

“I don’t look at you like anything Derek. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have my own life going on, and you butting into it won’t make me want to let you in. We used to be friends, but then you started acting like a total douche.”

“I was trying to protect you!” Derek exclaims frantically, “I remembered how much you loved your mom, how close you were. And you were my only friend for _so long_ I thought taking care of you would make you...smile again.” Derek whispers that last part, but Stiles hears him anyway.

Stiles doesn’t understand where this conversation is going. He's pissed of course, Derek once again stuck his big wolfy nose where it isn’t wanted. But he's also rethinking their reunion the week he spent at the Hale house. He remembers spending a lot of time by himself, pushing away the other kids and ignoring the adults. 

Derek used to sit outside his door a lot, talk to him about school and all the new teachers Stiles would meet on his first day. For a good week, their roles were reversed, Derek talked nonstop and Stiles (secretly) listened. When Stiles eventually began playing with everyone, Derek was extra cautious around him. It got annoying fast. Eventually Stiles started spending more time with Cora, Kieran, and Kat. They were closer to his age, and didn’t send him these searching looks every time he accidentally thought of his mom.

Stiles realizes now that he may have hurt Derek. He only ignored him because it made him uncomfortable that Derek saw through his facade, Derek could never be fooled by Stiles. He always saw too much.

“You’re just my cousin, Der. We were friends once, but people grow out of things all the time. Are you telling me that if I tried to sit with you and your basketball friends next year, you’d let me?” when Derek looks away without answering, Stiles nods. He’s not even mad to have it confirmed, he’d always known that’s how it’d be with Derek at one point.

“I...care about you Stiles, and I’ve tried my best t-to….be your friend.” Derek won’t meet his eyes while he talks, and this makes Stiles snort. Even when he’s trying to create a moment, Derek remains emotionally stunted.

“Why don’t you focus on your girlfriend and basketball and college, and I’ll focus on magic and Scott and….I don’t know kicking your ass on Rainbow Road?” Stiles offers Derek a smile and his hand. Derek stares at it for a long time, as if he isn’t sure what’s expected of him. Stiles rolls his eyes and thrusts his hand out again.

“Come one I’m not gonna be a loser and ask you to take it slow with the whole friendship thing. Cora already has _enough_ crap to use against me. Spit-shake and let's move on.” Stiles gives his hand a quick spit, and then thrusts it back out to Derek. Scott and Stiles spit shake all the time, if Derek wants to be his friend so bad he needs to get with the program.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little unhappy with the title. If any of you have noticed, several of the titles are songs from musicals. With the exception of two or three of course. This title fit this chapter when I first wrote it, but after light editing and some time passing, it better represents the next chapter. But I can't think of anything else to name this so I'm leaving it as it is for now.


	13. Moving too Fast

_Derek_ looks at Stiles with a disgusted furrow to his eyebrows, but he grudgingly spits on his hand, and then shakes hands with Stiles. The audible squishing of damp skin on damp skin makes Derek gag, but he doesn’t loosen his grip until Stiles does. The Spark then looks down at his charred clothing, and Derek swallows thickly at the exposed skin he sees.

“Crap! Allegra is gonna kill me!” Stiles groans dramatically, and then clumsily throws himself up the stairs. Derek can hear him muttering and complaining the whole way. When he reaches the landing, he trips over a step, but catches himself before falling. Derek can tell though, just by his breathing, that he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. He hears Kat and his sisters, giggling in Laura’s room. Kieran has been found by Jeremy, and is trying to negotiate his way out of wearing clothes for the evening. 

Derek can hear so much going on in this ever noisy house, but the only thing he can focus on is the frantic pounding of his heart. He hadn’t even been this nervous when asking Paige to meet his parents at dinner tonight. He’s never this nervous when on the court during crunch time, with his whole team counting on him and the clock winding down.

Stiles always does this to him and it’s so freaking frustrating. Spit shaking was stupid, childish, and disgusting. But when Derek looks down at his hand, skin tight with dry saliva, he puts it in his pocket. He goes to the front door, and lets himself out onto the porch. Its cooler out here and his family’s usual amount of chatter is dulled a bit. The nighttime air feels endlessly cool on his skin, and he draws in large lungfuls of it until his throat hurts.

Paige will meet his family today, Paige is gonna meet Stiles. 

Derek had never seen that coming. Paige meeting Stiles. Stiles is an acquired taste, he’s horrible at first impressions. He always speaks too much or too fast, or (back when he was younger) his powers will randomly shoot off. There’s a reason Scott is his only friend outside of the family.

Scott is the only person who ever seems to have understood Stiles from their very first meeting. Derek remembers the day Scott and Stiles became _Scott &Stiles_quite clearly. Who didn’t remember? It wasn’t like the family let anyone forget. The story comes up each Thanksgiving when the McCall’s come over. Scott and Stiles will get into some trouble, that Derek will eventually have to go and fix, and the family will curse the day those two ever met.

Jokingly of course. Everyone, with the exception of Peter, loved Scott like he was just another Hale kid. He came and went as he pleased, spending whole breaks sleeping over because of his mom’s busy schedule at the hospital. Derek hates those breaks the most. Scott’s scent gets over everything, it’s jarring to smell the safety of pack and then have to accommodate the smell of an asthmatic preteen.

The first time Scott and Stiles met, Derek remembers sitting on the couch as close to Stiles as he would allow. They’d been playing some game or other that Derek wasn’t entirely focused on because Stiles had color in his cheeks and his hair was freshly buzzed. Derek would try to focus on the game, he wasn’t actually as terrible at it as everyone liked to joke, but then Stiles would….smile.

Stiles crushed Derek in every game, but every lose was tempered by the fact that Stiles was smiling at him, and nudging him, and it was almost like when they were kids. When Stiles was his best friend and the only other boy in the house that he could play with. It was almost like Stiles liked him again.

Derek isn’t blind or stupid, he realizes he’s probably the last cousin Stiles likes spending time with, and he realizes that his pushing probably doesn’t help anything. He honestly doesn’t mean to do it, but Stiles is just so bad at taking care of himself. His recklessness fills Derek with this need to watch out for him, to make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble.

Of course it then backfires, because Stiles is obviously not feeling what he feels. That’s been obvious for so long now Derek is surprised he still allows himself to be hurt by it. Peter helps at least, Allegra hated his guts when they first met, and Uncle Jeremy followed Aunt Allegra around for months before she would even look at him. The Hale Men are experienced in pining, it’s practically a family trait at this point.

Derek is still sitting on the front porch when Paige and her dad pull up. Almost immediately, his mom arrives right behind them with Scott bouncing in the front seat. While the Alpha parks confidently behind the family Buick and Laura’s new Mini Cooper, Paige’s dad kind of lingers near the exit. He’s probably not sure of the etiquette in parking on an Alpha’s territory. So he just stops the car long enough for Paige to get out, and then awkwardly turns his car around so that he’s driving back the way he came.

Paige watches her father leave, and Derek watches Paige. With just the light of the moonlight and the weak glow coming from the windows of the house, Paige looks unreal, almost ethereal. She’s wearing a dress, the one she wore to her recital two months ago, and she’s piled her brown hair into a messy bun on her head. 

Derek doesn’t know all too much about hairstyles, but he feels the messy element of her hair is deliberate. Her hair isn’t usually that curly, so he thinks she curled it, and then piled it into a bun. It looks nice, and he appreciates the effort she put into her appearance. He hope Kat won’t be rude and comment on the faint smell of burned hair.

When she finally turns to face the house, she sends him a nervous smile. “Hey Der,” she whispers shyly. His words are trapped in his throat, so he nods. His mother, now out of the car and watching the two of them gives him a look*. So he clears his throat, opens his mouth and-

Is interrupted by Scott thundering up the porch steps and into the house. After a few seconds of him breathlessly pounding up to the second floor, another few seconds of him catching his breath, Derek loses track of him once he’s in Stiles’ room. 

His mom rolls her eyes fondly, and follows after Scott in a much more subdued pace. “Be sure to speak to her Derek. The nice girl came all this way, the least you could do is greet your guest.” His mother then departs with a sharp tug on his ear. Leaving Derek and Paige to stare at one another from across the lawn.

Paige walks up the leaf covered stone path to his front porch gracefully, Derek shifts nervously as she approaches. The light makes her dark brown hair shine a deep red color, nothing like the fair orange strange streaking through his father’s hair. But it’s beautiful all the same. When she looks up at him from the last step, her eyes twinkle magnificently. Derek feels as though he should comment on them, the beauty of her eyes. But he’s afraid that he’ll make a fool of himself.

Especially with his entire family listening in like hawks.

“Can I...come in?” Paige smirks, and Derek feels his heart get lodged in his throat. He’s an idiot! The first thing he should have done is invite her in! How could he forget that?

With a pinched frown on his face, Derek moves to the side so Paige can walk ahead of him to the door. “I know you were gonna invite me in eventually, but I forgot my jacket in the car and it’s cold in the woods.” the smile she shoots him is fond and indulgent, and Derek can quite literally feel his heart pound painfully for one long five second sequence.

Inside the house, it’s chaos. In the five minutes Derek had been sitting outside, the twins and Kieran had begun to chase one another through the house. Kieran, still naked, had a leaking bucket of some sweet smelling grey powder, and the twins were teleporting through the house, trying to catch up to him and take it back. 

In the living room, Laura and Kat were in a heated argument over a pair of earrings that were probably Laura’s but were currently residing in Kat’s ears. Cora watched in interest, eating what looked like the desserts his father had prepared for tonight's dinner.

“Um.” Derek gapes. 

Contrary to the gossip in town, they don’t run around naked all the time in their wolf form. His Aunts, the twins, and Stiles don’t wear long robes and witches hats as the cast spells and conjure curses or whatever. Things don’t even get all that wild here, as surprising as that sounds when you factor in they're a family of werewolves and magic users all under the same roof.

But this, _this_ is chaos. He’s never seen the house this messy before. His mom is nowhere to be found, his dad is in the study with his Uncles, and his Aunts are in the cottage outside. It feels like none of the people who would give a damn about what's going on here are even paying attention. 

Without a second to lose, Derek bolts to the study. He whips the door open without even knocking. He expects his dad to scold him, he expects his Uncles to hear the noise all the children are making and jump to action. He does not, however, expect to find his Uncles and father in various states of slumber, bowls of some creamy white soup still steaming on their laps and the desk. 

All Derek can do is let out a frustrated growl, before he heads toward the back door. He doesn't know how, and he doesn't know why, but he's entirely sure that either Stiles or the twins have something to do with all the men in the house being knocked out. The fact that he doesn't even have time to investigate raises his hackles. He's at a near half shift by the time he gets to the Aunt's’ cottage. 

Light from the cheery port windows shine on the impossibly green and dewy grass, and he has a moment of hope as he opens the door. 

“Aunt Anna, Aunt Allegra, the house is a mess. It's chaos all the kids are-” Derek stops short when he finally gets a full glimpse of his Aunts. 

Both of them are snoring, bowls of creamy white soup cooling on the table in front of them. Derek's claws comes out without prompting, and he feels a very strong need to rip into something with his teeth. 

It takes several minutes of pacing and deep breaths before he’s able to settle his mind into something resembling calm. Then the noise coming from the house crescendos, and Derek wants to rip into something all over again. 

From what he can gather, all the adults ate a bowl of soup before dinner. The twins or Stiles (or maybe all three) somehow put something to knock out all the adults. The only one who would have been spared was his mom.”

Wait! His mom!

Derek takes off at a run, and bursts through the house with a loud crash. He speeds past Kieran, who's somehow gotten into the chocolate frosting and is making a mess with it. He careens wildly through the living room where Kat and Laura are circling one another, claws out and half shifted. When Derek takes the steps two at a time, following his mother's scent, he passes Cora. She's eating what looks like a piece of the roast his dad made, and looking as happy as a clam. 

Derek thinks he sees her wave but can't really be sure since he's moving so fast. 

His mother's scent ends right at Stiles’ room, and Derek bursts in as quickly as possible. He doesn't even care enough to acknowledge how quickly Scott's scent has already mingled with Stiles'. He's more focused on the fact that in the course of maybe ten or fifteen minutes his family has successfully humiliated him in front of Paige. 

“Mom something happened to Dad and things are chaos downstairs! I need you to-” Derek stops speaking so abruptly his mouth is still forming words his threat won't produce. He shits his mouth when he realizes that Stiles has stolen his voice.

His mom shoots him a warning look, but returns to looking at Stiles. Stiles, the one who took Derek’s voice without a thought. Stiles, whose skin is so red he looks nuclear. 

When Derek looks to his mother for help, she sighs. 

“Stiles’ dad isn't coming.”


	14. See I'm Smiling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was written in one quick emotional stretch but I feel happy with this. All mistakes are my own. I would like you guys to tell me what you'd like to see next. I have written the ending to this and but I want Derek and Stiles to have a little more fun together.
> 
> So let me know and let's do this!

It’s very quiet in the house for a few days. The twins have been sent away, Anna and Allegra are with them. No one tells Stiles where and he never leaves his room so he doesn’t think to ask. And typically, when a pack mate is in here, there’s not much talking to be done. Stiles doesn’t have much to say these days and despite their efforts, no one can make him speak.

He spends his mornings with Uncle Peter, who reads to him until James has finished preparing breakfast and getting everyone ready for school. Then Uncle James comes in and tidies up around the room, tries to get him to express any emotion that might bring him out of his catatonia, before Uncle Jeremy comes in. Uncle Jeremy talks about sports, baby names, and the stress he’s feeling having his pregnant mate and wife away for so long.

Eventually Jeremy leaves and the kids are back home so it’s a new round of visitors. Laura comes in and fills him in on what he’s missing at school, Cora comes in and offers to hunt down his father and beat him up for him. Kieran comes in, mostly to play with his toys on the carpet and tell Stiles all about the stories he’s created and the thrilling life his dump truck lives. They all leave eventually to do homework or something, and then Scott comes over.

Scott takes off his shoes, drops off Stiles’ late homework on the desk, and then climbs into bed with Stiles. They don’t talk, which Stiles appreciates, somewhere far down below the all consuming numbness that’s taken over his heart and body. Scott only leaves to go to the bathroom, pick up their dinner, and bring the empty plates back down. Stiles eats, because Scott will give him this positively vicious and effective puppy dog look that cuts through his stillness. 

Depending on the day, Scott will climb into bed when it gets late and go to sleep against Stiles’ back. If not, then Scott will go home around the time all the kids are getting ready for bed. Stiles usually waits until everyone’s asleep and then he’ll walk himself out of his room, out of the house, and into the woods. He won’t stop walking until he reaches the Nemeton and then he’ll sit under it’s branches, feeling the hum of it in the earth, and he’ll finally go to sleep.

He always wakes up in his bed the next morning, with Peter at is bedside ready to restart the routine that’s been going on for almost a week.

Stiles is sure his family think he’s upset with his father, for not showing up, for abandoning him, for being as flaky as he expected. But to be honest, aside from that first, angry night, he hasn’t thought much of his father. He’s come to terms with the fact that his dad hasn’t changed, and probably won’t for a long time.

What’s haunting him, what’s confining him to his bed, is the fact that he’s utterly alone and unwanted in the world. His mother, the person who he’s sure loved him more than anything in the entire world, is gone and has been gone for such a long time he’s beginning to forget her face. Which utterly terrifies him.

He didn’t even really get his hopes up for his dad coming, at least, he tried not to. He can’t really remember his father’s face, just his presence. How much it meant to him when his dad would let him tag along with him to the station, when his dad would pick him back up after he fell off his bike, when his dad hugged him and told him to cry if he needed to. 

Stiles hasn’t cried in so long. He tries to, at the Nemeton. It feels appropriate there, that he should cry. The Nemeton is now his last connection to his mother, the Hales don’t really talk about her. There’s a small shrine, in the cupboard, that they light and talk to during Christmas time. But other than that Claudia Stilinski is a name only brought up when the photo albums are out.

On day ten, of his self imposed exile comes into his room, and climbs into bed with him. She fixes herself at his back, tucking him neatly under her chin and wrapping her arms around him. Ten minutes later, Ella and Emma appear in his room with a clap of thunder and the smell of burnt caramel in their hair. They climb under the covers at the foot of his bed, and charm the hell out of the foot board.

Little, silly charms they’d all been taught really young. No grass stain charms, chicken pox charms, charms to turn someone’s hair green if they tried to sleep in his bed.

Six minutes later, Kat and Cora come in, announce themselves to the room, and then lay across Aunt Talia and Stiles’ legs. Cora immediately goes to sleep and Kat takes out a bottle of nail polish. By the time Kat is done with her right hand, Laura and a beet-red Derek stand nervously at the door.

Laura, unamused by her brother’s dilly dallying, pushes him into the room, before leaping over him and laying between her mother and the wall. Derek quickly leaps to his feet with his head down and sits on the floor next to Stiles’ head.

“Peter called for a puppy pile so. I figure this counts, right?” Derek looks at Stiles from beneath his eyebrows, but Stiles is still processing how his bed became so crowded so quickly. When Stiles remains silent, Talia lifts Stiles hand and rests it on Derek’s head.

The arrival of Kieran, still asleep as far they can see, who uses Derek as a stepping stool to climb onto the bed and nuzzle into Stiles. While he’s making himself comfortable, Aunt Allegra and Aunt Anna appears with blankets, couch cushions, and pillows. They set up shop as close to Stiles’ bed as the can, and then settle together (Anna leaning on Allegra for help getting down) on the comfortable mass. They’re joined by their husbands shortly after.

When Stiles’ brain, actually remembers what a puppy pile means in this family, is already sat up and helping Uncle James pass out the cups of hot chocolate.

The family stares silently, whatever tentative conversation that had begun now squashed, as they watch Stiles get out of bed for the first time in almost two weeks. They all accept a cup when it is passed to them, and no one says anything until Stiles himself is back on his bed, with his Uncle by his side as a wolf, and a cup of hot chocolate in his hand.

Then Kat blurts, “So what did we all think of Paige?”

“Boring!” The twins sing-song from the foot of the bed, they both have chocolate mustaches and Peter’s nuzzling at their face trying to get them to clean it up with little licks and howls.

“I thought she was nice!” Laura exclaims.

“I thought her shoes were very pretty. I wonder if they’d fit me?” Kat monotones from around her mug. She’s holding one hand out away from her and any fur, while trying to neatly sip at her drink.

The room dissolves into a chaotic cacophony of people trying to talk over each other, his Uncles in their wolf form barking to add to the noise, and Aunt Talia laughing as she translates to Stiles, what James, Jeremy, and Peter are saying.

“Uncle Peter!” Derek shouts suddenly, he buries his red face in his hands while Laura laughs and pats his back.

“Aw come on, you know he didn’t mean it that way!” Laura teases.

“At least we hope not,” Cora groans. Everyone laughs and then Kat asks them what they think of the color of her nails. Kieran, from his sleep, wakes long enough to give Stiles a quick lick to his cheek which prompts the rest of the pack to start scent marking as well.

Kat, who usually secludes herself until she smells so faintly of pack _everyone_ noticed, immediately runs a finger along her brother’s back. She tugs at the twins’ ears, runs a thumb across Cora’s forehead. Pats both Laura’ knee and Aunt Talia’s thigh. And then Stiles lost track because Derek patted the hand that was still resting on his head, and Aunt Talia ran her nose along the crown of his head. 

Stiles never contributes to any of the conversations that pop up for the rest of that morning. He laughs at what his cousins say, boo when Peter gets all creepy about Paige and Derek dating, helps Uncle James collect the mugs to be taken downstairs. He’s almost his usual self, except for not speaking. He decides then and there that the first place he wants to go now that he’s permanently out of his bed, is the Nemeton.

He wants to save his words for her.


	15. I Can Hear the Bells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm speed writing at the moment, I'm trying to get all the rest of the chapters out and give you all the ending you deserve. Sorry about the pacing of the story.

Stiles returns from his third week of training with Deaton with a bloody nose and a goofy smile on his face. His Aunt Talia, who’d been walking past the front door after getting the mail, takes one look at him and immediately smiles. He knows she can smell the dopey puppy love scent wafting right off of him, but he honestly couldn’t care less. He’d had another class with Lydia Martin today.

Talia places the mail on the table where keys and bags usually ended up, and gently wiped off the blood covering his upper lip and cheeks. He hadn’t bled much, but he’d been too out of it to wipe off the little bit of blood dripping out of his nose. All Stiles could think about was the way she looked when reading ancient Latin out of one of Deaton’s books. The way her red-

No, her hair is too complex to just be red. It was gold in certain lights, distinctly auburn toned when he looked at her from the side. Her hair look so soft too, he’d never met a thirteen year old who looked so put together before. Never met a thirteen year old so smart either. He’s a whole year older and she totally swept him in the defensive magic portion of their lesson.

“You in love kiddo or was it the knock to the head? I’ve heard that humans get concussions sometimes when hit too hard.” Talia asks. She still amused, but her question is steeped in concern. This is the longest Stiles has allowed her to touch him since he was little. 

“Lydia punched me in the face!” Stiles answers delightedly. Talia lets out a loud snort before she gently chucks her nephew under his chin.

“Is that all?” She asks as she reaches for the mail. Stiles marvels a little at the fact he’s almost the same height as his aunt. It seemed like only yesterday he was at her elbow and now he’s almost of eye level with her.

“Aunt Talia she’s the one. I know it, I feel it in my bones. It’s like she’s my soulmate or something.” Stiles looks up at his aunt with this manic look of glee in his eyes. His pale cheeks are flushed red, and he knows she won’t hear his heartbeat stutter over his proclamation. Stiles truly believes that Lydia Martin is his soulmate.

 **Talia** thanks every god there is that Derek is out of the house right now. Stiles is the first to return home from his lesson with Deaton. Kat’s at cheerleading practice, Cora is sitting in the bleachers glaring at the football players ogling her cousin, Derek is off with James and Peter meeting other packs, and Kieran is with Matty and Anna in the woods. Stiles’ little outburst will be between the two of them for now, but who knows how long that will last.

Turning back to Stiles, Talia tries her best to school her features into a pleasant expression, “Can you go clean up for me Stiles. I was gonna try my hand at dinner and I’d like some company.”

It shows how out of it Stiles is when he merely nods and then runs off to do what she says. Usually her every request came with an interrogation and a pissing contest. She supposes that Stiles has fully accepted his place in the family. It pains her to know it took his dad not showing up to the family dinner last year for that to happen, but she's firm in her decision to cut John out of his life.

Talia is a big girl, she can admit when she’s wrong. She shouldn’t have insisted that they invite that man to dinner. She was afraid for a minute there, that Stiles would sink inside himself from grief, and then they’d never get him back. That boy has been through far too much. The past year has been amazing for the family, and Talia intends to keep it that way.

Things have been good, for everyone.

Laura decided to go to school in New York, Columbia. It’s Ivy League, which is the only thing keeping Talia from constantly calling her daughter to see how she’s adjusting and whether or not she’s eating enough. Talia is constantly torn between smothering her daughter the way the mother (and Alpha) in her wants to, and allowing her daughter to be the strong woman she know’s she’s going to be.

It helps that she still has a household filled with children. She’d heard James trying to convince Peter and Allegra to give it another go, add to the family and pack. The look her brother and his wife gave James could make metal melt. Talia found herself smiling as she thought of it. Walking into the kitchen of course, wiped that smile right of her face.

James and Peter have been taking Derek to see other pack’s for a month or so. So the house and kitchen has turned steadily into a dump for about a month or so. Does it make her a bad wife to admit that she can’t cook at all? Or that she doesn’t know where her husband keeps their cleaning supplies? The entire house has been living off of pizza and the only chinese food place that will deliver out in the woods.

The responsible adult in her knows that it’s best that she has to allow Derek to make his choice about his place within the pack, but it’s hard. She’d always assumed he’d be Laura’s second one day, never even thought that he could want anything else. But apparently he does, and he wants to do it while he’s still young enough to get over Stiles.

Listening to the way Stiles talk about the Martin girl, immediately brought her back to her early twenties, listening to Claudia sigh on the phone as she talked about the young deputy she met at a music festival. Stiles is slowly but surely turning into a walking memory of his mother. He’s stubborn but unflinchingly loyal, he’s shown great potential with his magical ability, even surpassing his mother when she was his age. But just like Claud, he wore his heart on his sleeve and handed it out to anyone who would look his way.

When Stiles comes back into the kitchen, Talia had cleared the counter and was now staring down a bushel of carrots. She planned to attempt her husbands light vegetable soup, it’s slowly becoming too hot to eat as heavy as they usually do. It’s late September and summer is taking it’s time transitioning into fall. Plus, werewolf or not, it can’t be good for them to constantly eat takeout and pizza.

“When I passed Matty’s pen I noticed he was awake, it felt weird to just leave him out there so I brought him in with me.” Stiles lifts the docile eight month old in his arms, and Talia kisses her nephew’s chubby cheeks.

Matty was the only fully human member of the Hale family, as far as they knew. Stiles, Allegra, and Anna all swore up and down that you couldn’t tell magical ability in one so young, but that didn’t mean anything. If he was a werewolf he’d have been born half shifted, which he wasn’t. So they kind of treat him like they would any human, carefully. 

He wasn’t a terribly hard baby to please. He only cried when he was hungry, was content to be sat in his playpen for hours, and slept through the night without any difficulty. It almost made Talia consider trying with James again, but after Cora she knew her years of having children were done. Matty was just a deceptively easy baby, those were the one’s who usually turned into the biggest handfuls.

Case in point; Stiles, the twins and Cora

“So tell me about Lydia,” Talia prompts once she’s done chopping the carrots. She moves on to celery and eyes the tomatoes sitting in the sink. Kat hates tomatoes, but Ella and Emma loves them, it’ll be hard enough to get all the kids to eat vegetables. She should at least put some favorites in. She slides the carrots into the large stew pot of boiling water, and then moved to add some spices.

As soon as he’d been given an opening Stiles was off, “Oh God, she’s amazing. She’s like so smart, like smarter than me! And she knows it! She’d finished all the books that Deaton had given her to read about being a Banshee and her potential psychic ability. By the time she’d come back she’d mastered astral projection.”

“She’s a Banshee,” Talia wondered out loud. That was rare. There hadn’t been a Banshee in town since her mother was Alpha. Talia made a mental note to talk to the Martin’s about their plans for their daughter.

Talia tuned back into Stiles as he was waxing poetic about the exact shade of her hair, “It shines gold sometimes, almost blonde but then, but then!” Stiles exclaims excitedly, “It had this almost copper undertone, and then I have to figure out what shade it is all over again.”

Talia snorted, “With all this attention you’re paying to Miss Martin’s hair I hope you're giving the same consideration for your studies.”

Stiles makes a face and shrugs, “Everything Deaton’s teaching me I already know. It gets boring.”

Talia rolled her eyes, everything bored Stiles. The boy was intelligent, way beyond his years. Which sometimes translated to him mastering his magical studies quickly, and other times translated to him goofing off and letting his magic run wild. She tried to give him balance, allow him to explore how far hs intellect can take him, while also trying to remind him he is still fourteen years old and has a long way to go before he knows even half of what he thinks he knows.

“What about school, is Harris still giving you trouble?” Stiles really rolled his eyes then, putting his whole head and body into the act. Matty, silent and content to just be held up to this point, begins lightly squeezing Stiles’ lips and cheeks.

“I swear Harris hates me. I haven’t even done anything” Talia pauses in her cooking to look back at her nephew with a disbelieving raised eyebrow.

Stiles wilts, “Okay, correction: I haven’t done anything bad enough to make him hate me forever. Aren’t adults supposed to forgive and forget.” His words are a mish-mashed jumble, as he tries to talk around the baby gripping his face. Matty seems fascinated by this and dedicates two hands to stretching the skin on Stiles’ skin as far as it can go.

“Ah, ah ah ah,” Stiles tugs his face out of Matty’s grip, but within seconds the infant is back to reaching for his cheeks.

“Ugh, Aunt Talia?” Stiles beseeches. With a laugh, Talia places the top on the big pot, and then liberates her nephew from her Stiles.

“You need to take responsibility for your powers, Stiles. You made your bed now lie in it.” Stiles’ shoulders slump dramatically and he begins to pout.

“It technically wasn’t even my fault! Scotty wanted me to make him-” Talia raised a hand and waved away his words.

“Stop right there. I’d hate to ground you for something that happened months ago. The less I know the better.” Stiles quickly shut his trap, but then begins looking anxiously around the kitchen.

“So,” he begins with mock nonchalance. Talia smirks, but doesn’t prompt her nephew further. Stiles wants to ask her something, and she’s gonna let him build up the courage to do so. Making sure her grip on Matty was secure, Talia turned back to the stove and began to stir the liquid slowly.

“It’s about to be November.” Stiles tries and fails at casualness, but Talia is nice enough not to comment on it.

“That’s right, and?” 

“Is everyone gonna be home for Thanksgiving?” Talia is thankful her back is to Stiles, because she honestly can’t stop the smiles forcing it’s way across her face. She has enough self-control not to outright snort, because she knows that’s not what Stiles wanted to ask, but the smile is relentless.

“I don’t know about Laura, she says her dorm is planning a kind of Orphan Thanksgiving, and she wanted to tag along with a friend.” Stiles lets out a frustrated huff behind her, and all Talia does is smile.

Yep, he definitely wanted to ask her something else.

“ _But_ ,” Stiles stresses this word, and Talia wonders how long he planned to draw this out, “What about the rest of the family?”

Talia turned back to her nephew, a knowing look in her eyes and Matty preoccupied with a lock of her hair and sitting calmly on her hip. “Our cousins from New Mexico are dealing with a territory dispute so we agreed it wouldn’t be the best time for them to come up here.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her, finally catching on to the fact that she knew exactly what he was asking and refused to play along. She raised an eyebrow in return, the amused smile never leaving her face.

“You’re being mean!” He declares.

“You’re being obtuse. Ask what you want or expect to get the answers you don’t want” Talia counters.

“You sound just like Laura.”

“Who do you think she learned it from?”

They stare at one another for a while longer, neither one of them wanting to be the one who breaks the silence. Talia has no dog in this fight, but she takes express joy out of frustrating her nephew. Stiles always knows exactly what buttons to push with his cousins, Talia just wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine. Stiles of course was taking this as a personal challenge. She wondered which one would win; his pride or his need for information?

She sees him waver before he sighs, and aside from a teasing smile in triumph, she says nothing else.

“ _whenisderekcomingback _?” Stiles grumbles into his chest.__

Talia hears him, but she can’t help the childish part of her that pretends she can’t. Stiles sends her a withering look, but she can see the glimmer of amusement in his own eyes. They’ve never really had time to joke around with one another like this. In the beginning, he blamed her for taking him away from his father. Which she understands, she’s never held any resentment because Stiles never took to her the way he did the rest of the family. But as time went on, and they both got older, she likes to believe that their relationship is finally beginning, and that they can have moments of levity like this.

“ _When_ ,” Stiles stresses, “Is Derek coming back?”

Talia smiles, “Now was that so hard?”

“Extremely, I’m internally bleeding from the pain.” Stiles deadpans.

Talia rolls her eyes but answers anyway, “He should be back tomorrow morning. Hopefully with an offer from another pack.” Talia places Matty in the bouncer they keep in the kitchen. It was rare that they couldn’t get someone to keep an eye on the infant when everyone was busy, especially when Derek's home, but just incase they have safe little activities for him to do in every room of the house.

When she rights herself after making sure her nephew is securely fastened in, Stiles is looking at her with a stricken look on his face. “What?” she asks.

“What offers, what’s going on?” Stiles looks so confused and worried, that it makes Talia pause before answering. She hadn’t seen Stiles this surprised and confused since he was a sooty eight year old, still mourning his mother.

“Well, Derek is the second born, and usually he’d be the one to take over as second, but he told me that’s not what he wanted.” Her words did nothing to erase that stricken look on Stiles’ face. He looked like he’d been slap, and the surprise of the offense, not the actual pain, had him paralysed from shock.

“Then what’s going to happen? Where is he going?” Stiles demanded.

“Hey, I don’t like that tone.” Talia was still worried over her nephew's reaction, but she wouldn’t tolerate blatant disrespect. 

“Okay, yeah I’m sorry. But how are you not freaking out right now? Derek is trying to leave the pack!” Stiles waved away her admonishment, and his rose in pitch as he became frantic.

“He’s not leaving the pack, nothing is set in stone at the moment we’re just exploring our option. There have been a number of packs near us and I thought it pertinent we start talking treaties.” Talia didn’t feel like she had to explain herself, as far as she’s concerned Stiles shouldn’t know about this at all. It’s his reaction, the frantic worry on his face at the thought that Derek might leave them, that gives her pause.

She’d been so worried for her son when he realized that Stiles was his True Mate. It couldn’t have been easy on her son, learning that the person he’s destined to be with may never feel the same way about him. But the vehemence of Stiles’ worry, the power of fear in his voice makes her pause. Maybe they had been wrong to assume that Stiles wouldn’t feel the same.

“So you’re gonna marry him off? Like a bargaining chip?” Stiles looked furious and Talia sighed. Guess their moment of connecting was over then. 

“That’s not what’s happening Stiles, this doesn’t concern you so I’m done talking about this.” Talia put her Alpha tone in her voice, even though she knew it wouldn’t work on Stiles, but the boy heard it and grew stone faced.

“Fine!” With one last glare, he stomped out of the kitchen and into the backyard. She had no doubt he was going to the Nemeton. He’s been spending a lot of time there since that dinner last year with his father. She’d hoped it was temporary, but now she knew it wasn’t. He was going there to meditate and probably find a way to disobey her all at once.

Talia desperately wished her husband was here. Or at least, and God she was desperate, Peter. Only they could actually get into the young Sparks head when he got like this. All Talia could do was sigh, and return to her cooking.

“Can you promise to stay a baby forever Matty, I don’t think I can take another teenager at the moment.”


	16. Inútil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning to everyone, the next two-three chapters will be dealing with some pretty angsty almost canon stuff. So if you want to skip you can. I understand.

Inútil  
Stiles is abroad with Deaton when his entire world is nearly destroyed.

When he found out that Derek was courting other packs, by _choice_ , Stiles stopped talking to him. How could he betray the pack like that? They were taught their whole lives that pack and family came first. The pack protected you, the pack was there for you when everything else in the world became uncertain. Derek trying to leave them, because he didn’t want the responsibility of being the Alpha’s Second, struck too close to home for him.

His dad couldn’t handle being a father, and has let him down since he chose to be a drunk over taking care of his son. Derek doesn’t have to leave the pack because he doesn’t want to be a second. He’s leaving the pack because he’s a coward, and Stiles has no time for deserters.

When Derek would approach him to talk about something, Stiles would pretend he couldn’t hear him, and immediately walk away. When they’d play family games, Stiles would do everything in his power not to be put on the same team as Derek. Then he’d spend the entire game doing everything in his power to mess Derek up. To the point that the game stopped being about winning and started being about making Derek lose his temper.

He used his magic to mercilessly prank him, to the point that Peter and his Aunts put magical binders on his wrists until he agreed to behave himself.

The tension in the house eventually became too much for everyone so Peter, Allegra, and Anna all decided it’d be best if he spent the summer with Deaton travelling and learning more about his powers. Sparks are rare, and Stiles has learned all Deaton has to teach him. Stiles could have taken this trip by himself in another four years, but he didn’t want to wait. So when Deaton and Peter approached him about it at the start of summer break, he jumped at the opportunity.

He hadn’t expected the twins to frantically teleport into his room and tell him the house is burning down.

Stiles has no time to do anything, no time to react, no time to think through his next move. Because as soon as they appear in his room, they grab his hand and teleport him back with them to the house. 

The Hale house gives off an unbearable heat as it blazes, the air seems to bend from the heat, and he finds he has a hard time taking deep breaths. The twins look up at him in fear, wondering what he’s gonna do, how he’s going to save the family. Stiles wishes he could look at himself as well, cause he has no fucking idea what he’s gonna do. All I can think about is the fact that his family is in there, his pack is dying and he can’t figure out what to do.

He’s too young, he’s not ready. Why is it him? Why does he have to figure out how to save everyone?

The screams of his family echo back to him, they’re trapped, with no way to escape. The werewolves will be fine for a while, but what about the humans? What about Matty? He’s just a baby, he’ll die from smoke inhalation before he dies from the actual fire. All the humans will. The werewolves will burn alive. They’ll watch Anna, Allegra, and Matty die before the fire burns them.

He can hear their screams, he can hear them begging for help and his stomach churns painfully. He can’t save _them_.

Stiles tries to settle his mind, his heart beats frantically and his palms sweat as he tries to think. He can’t call anyone, his phone is back with Deaton. Besides calling anyone would take too long. The Hale’s live deep in the Preserve. By the time the firefighters got to them, there will be nothing but a blackened shell left.

He tries to look around and focus. If he focuses on one thing, he could save someone, he could save their family. 

“I have to figure out why they’re trapped! Look on the ground for a line of black powder, when you find it, wipe it away!” The twins look scared out of their minds, but they nod anyway, and begin hunting for the line. Stiles drops to his knees and begins whipping fallen leaves and dirt back and forth until he can find the line of mountain ash that’s keeping his family locked in the blaze. 

There are a lot of plants in the world that could do a werewolf harm, but mountain ash is the only one that can effectively trap a werewolf where they stand. That’s the only way that his family could be trapped inside. 

“Found it!” He hears the twins cry from a long ways off. With one swipe, the bubble surrounding the house seems to burst, and the heat seems to ratchet up even higher somehow.

The screams are louder now and coming from what looks like the cellar. Stiles throws himself forward towards the house, there’s a door leading to the cellar if he remembers correctly. Sometimes as kids he and his cousins would play tag. It’s in the back of the house, and it feels like he runs there in slow motion. The fire seems to be reaching a crescendo, the heat becoming unbearable even to him as he runs for the doors leading to the cellar.

When he finds it, the twins have beat him there. “It’s locked! It’s locked! I can’t open it! Please!” Ella sobs as she pulls on the padlock on the doors over and over again.

“Let me try,” Stiles reaches forward, he tries a lock picking spell he knows. Nothing. He tries to use his magic to break the padlock itself. Nothing. He’s running out of ideas, this was the only way into the cellar from the outside. The house is burning too hot to go through the front door, and he didn’t feel right sending the twins in to teleport everyone out.

“Daddy!” Emma sobbed, banging on the cellar doors over and over again. Ella looks at Stiles, her little face covered in soot and ash. Tear tracks cut through the layer of grime, and she looks utterly hopeless and defeated. 

“What do we do?” she asks brokenly.

Stiles feels helpless. He feels hopeless. He feels like he’s let his entire family down and he can’t fix this. He can’t fix this. He’s never felt so utterly useless in his life. His cousins, both of them barely eight years old, are about to have their entire world changed, just like him when he was their age. He can’t protect them, he can’t save his family. Stiles doesn’t know what to do.

“I’ll fix this,” he promises. “I’ll save everyone, don’t worry.” He tries to put force behind his words, make them mean something other than, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” He can’t tell if he succeeds though, the terrified look in his cousin’s eyes doesn’t lift.

“I need you to get me in there.” 

Both girls look at him as if he’s insane, “You’ll burn alive!”

“I need you both to get me in there, and then take me out.” Stiles insists. 

“How? We’ve never just sent someone without us. We might not even know how to bring you back!” Ella argues. 

“I trust you. I can’t let the two of you go in there, so I have to do it instead. I have a plan, but I need you both to bring me _” Stiles tries to put authority in his words. He knows very well he could die, he doesn’t have any idea what he’s going to do once he get’s in there. But he knows he has to try something, and this is the only thing he can think of._

_“Count to sixty and then bring me back.” He orders. The twins nod solemnly._

_Ella and Emma clasps hands, and then placed their free hand on Stiles shoulder. With a sickening lurch, he’s pushed from outside the house, into the smoking cellar. Immediately he locates his family._

_Talia is trying to protect the little ones from the worst of the blaze, Anna and Allegra are trying to chant, but the smoke inhalation is making it hard for them to use their magic. Peter and Jeremy are throwing themselves against the door, looking trying to fix the cave in to one of the tunnels. When they all notice him, they immediately rush to his side._

_“The twins, they got to you. Good. Take the kids outside.” Talia places a too still Matty into his arms, Kieran, also still, is placed at his feet. Katherine limps closer to him, and wraps an arm around his. He can’t see Cora anywhere._

_That same sickening lurch happens, only this time he’s pushed outside. The air is immediately different, and he feels his cousins take a simultaneous deep breath. Katherine is coughing on the forest floor, trying to catch her breath, while Keiran remains still at Stiles’ feet._

_“I’m going back in,” Stiles declares, “This time thirty seconds okay,” the twins nod and once again clasps hands. Stiles gives Matty to Katherine, “Run!” he says, “Run and get help. Find a phone or something. I don’t know if I can get everyone out.”_

_Before she can reply, the twins _push_ him back into the cellar. Stiles reaches out to his Aunts, and when the twins bring him back, they go with him._

_“Again,” Stiles orders. It’s getting harder and harder to breath, but he doesn’t care. He has to get everyone out as soon as possible. From what he can here, the house is beginning to collapse._

_This time, when he goes in Talia stops him. “Save me for last, get everyone out first. I don’t want anyone left behind.” Stiles nods, and places his hands on Jeremy. James, a horrifically burned huddle in the of the cellar, doesn’t make a move as Stiles places a hand on him. When the twins bring him outside, Jeremy falls to his knees gasping for air._

_“Last one,” Stiles promises. The twins look drained, but determined. When he’s _pushed_ back inside, he realizes the blaze has reached the cellar door and was trying to make it’s way inside. Talia, with on hand on Stiles and the other pulling Peter closer, gives is coughing so hard she’s bent over at the waste._

_“GIRLS NOW!” Stiles yells. He doesn’t know if his words carry over the roar of the fire, until he feels that _push_ and he collapses on the grass.  >_


	17. Stay Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This isn't at all edited but I was really feeling this chapter and I felt like I should just post it and worry about it later.

When Stiles wakes up, he’s in a hospital room crowded with people. Not people, his family. Sprawled in uncomfortable chairs, was his Uncle Jeremy and Uncle Max from Nevada. His Aunt Nadine, the Alpha of the Nevada pack, had taken up residence on a tiny futon in the corner. He could see a baby wrapped in her arms, but he didn’t know if it was Matty or a different little cousin. He saw his older cousins, Jesse and Jr, napping near their mom on the futon. And he couldn’t identify the people sleeping on the floor. The room he was in housed three other beds besides his, and he saw Peter wrapped heavily in bandages in one, and a still figure sleeping behind the sheet separating the beds. 

He could see other family member from the Nevada pack sleeping in various chairs and in little puppy piles on the floor. But aside from Uncle Jeremy, who looked unscathed in front of him, and Uncle Peter in the bed next to him, he can’t see any of the Beacon Hills pack. His heart races as he searches among the figures in his room for his Aunts and cousins, he thought he got them all out!

He was sure, he knew it, he saved all of them. Stiles’ memory had gaps but he knew for a fact that he’d gone and saved everyone. He knows that. He remembers Matty being still, he remember the twins coming to get him. He remembers it all. His heart rate monitor goes crazy wild, beeping faster and faster as a panic attack takes full grip of his body. He’s hyperventilating, trying to remember, trying to find his family in the faces among the crowd and he can’t*.

Derek, Laura, Cora, Katherine, Ella, Emma, Kieran, Talia, Anna, Allegra. And Matty, who’s just a baby. He was so still the last time Stiles saw him. Stiles had tried to go as fast as possible in getting him out but he doesn’t know if he gave him enough time. He doesn’t know if he did anything to save them.

The Nevada Pack and Jeremy awake the second his heart monitor crescendos. Dozens of Beta gold eyes, and a single pair of Alpha red, open in sync. In seconds they all begin to crowd around him, trying to cover him in their scent. It’s how wolves calm other wolves, and even though Stiles is pack, he’s also human. With all of his cousins and Aunts and Uncles who aren’t* the ones in the fire crowding around him, he panics even more.

And of course the whole pack is immediately even more tense and riled up. Several members of their pack were hurt badly enough to need a hospital, whoever did this was still out there, and they were stuck in an unfamiliar place with awful sterile smells. Stiles appreciated his packs fast response to his panic, but he wishes they’d give him some space. It’s already so hard to breathe, and his chest hurts something awful. He can feel his Spark, weak and overworked, sputtering inside of him.   
He’s unconsciously drawing on his powers in his panic, but his Spark has nothing to give him.

“Jesus! Stiles! I’m coming, just...!” Melissa McCall came in with a mother’s fury. She began pushing past the tense crowd of werewolves, ignoring snarls and growls, to get to Stiles’ bed. With an anger only a Mother and nurse can manage, she shot every werewolf in the room a heated glare, “If you would stop crowding him he could breathe!”

She turned to the Alpha, “Nadine, we’ve talked about this. I know you’re all in overdrive right now because your pack was attacked, but this is my patient. You know I would protect Stiles with my life, and I’m doing my best to treat him. But you have to follow hospital rules.” She paused and cast a look around the room flooded with more family members than hospitals typically allow and sighed, “At least to some extent.”

Nadine looked sheepish, before casting a stern glare around her pack, “You heard the woman. Control yourselves.” The pack was slow to comply, but they eventually relaxed enough to get Melissa close to Stiles. He was no longer hyperventilating, but he was still shaky and in shock. Melissa came in close and brushed sweat slicked hair out of his face, “Hey, Stiles. Just breath sweetie, let it out. Don’t fight it okay. Let it out. Deep, breaths. Follow my breathing, sweetie.” Melissa began taking exaggerated, swooping lungfuls of air, and then letting them out in a slow hiss.

Her hand was gentle against his face, her eyes kind and motherly. She smelled like the McCall's detergent, which meant she’d probably just got here and hadn’t had time to get that sterile hospital smell all over herself. She reminded of his mom so much in that moment that he began to sob, his hitched breathing growing thick with tears. 

Melissa’s eyes became even more concerned and warm. She stopped trying to get him to follow his breathing, and just held him through his sobbing. He felt himself curling into her, and he felt the pack around them scoot closer to the bed so that they were almost touching him. Offering support. Behind him he felt Uncle Jeremy lay down and rub his arm.

Stiles cried with his head in Melissa McCall’s arms, and he mourned his mother, he mourned his cousins, and he mourned his house and the life he had. Because even if it turns out that he managed to get everyone out in time, they’re lives are forever changed. Someone tried to kill them, and nearly succeeded if not for the twins and their teleportation ability. 

And what if they hadn’t been able to? Stiles was the one who taught them that trick, what if he hadn’t been there to teach it to them? Or what if they hadn’t been able to get him into the house? Or get him back out? He’d almost lost his entire family in the most horrible way. He probably has for all he knows. He hadn’t seen Laura or Derek he was sure of it. But that could mean anything? They could have gotten out, not been in it at all, or…

Or they’re dead, and he was too late to get to them.  
Stiles’s panic attack wasn’t anything compared to the inconsolable sobbing he was doing at that moment. Melissa eventually had to sedate him to get him to calm down. She held him tightly as his sobs finally subsided with sleep.

 

“We’re going to have to keep a little while longer, you all should go home. I don’t think he’s ready just yet.” Dr. Le, a Druid who’d been assigned to Hale family as a whole, finally broke the news to Alpha Wyatt and Alpha Hale. 

Talia ran a hand through her hair and nodded stiffly, “It’s probably for the best. We’re still trying to work out everything with the FBI, and it’s a little crowded at the hotel right now.” the doctor nodded once before motioning towards Stiles again.

“He’s strong, he’s already beginning to show signs of recovery from the smoke inhalation, it’s just his Spark I’m worried about.” the doctor once again referenced the chart in front of her. “What magic could he have possibly done that drained him so thoroughly?” She looked up at the two women in front of her.

“Um, the…”Talia cleared her throat once, “The woman who tried killing us came back. She began to shoot the children with wolfsbane bullet and Stiles….” She rubbed a hand across her mouth and looked down at her feet. Just remembering it sent chills down her spine. She’d never seen so much magic in her life, she’d never seen someone so powerful, so young, and so angry. 

Stiles had screamed like he was in pain, something old and furious in his young eyes. He’d killed Kate Argent with one blow, burning her from the inside out, roasting her in front of them all. Once she died, he’d turned on them all and tried to heal them. 

“He’d used so much power, and must have realized that the excess would kill him, so he wanted to do something good.” Talia finally finished her explanation, and then proceeded to sigh so deeply she saw stars. There was so much pressure on her right now. Pressure from the authorities, pressure from the family, pressure from the bills and the insurance company.

And she was still worried about James, Peter, and Stiles. She can still remember the smell of her husband's flesh. She can still remember the sight of her brother watching his children and wife slowly dying from smoke inhalation. And poor Stiles. He’d almost killed himself trying to save them all, she felt so helpless. Talia has raised this boy, this little man who looks so much like the best friend she failed to save. She can’t fail Claudia again. She can’t let Stiles die after having given the family so much.

Talia refuses to let Stiles die.


	18. Helpless

“It's too dangerous for us to wait like this, we don't know who... _she_ was working with! There could be others.” Laura was doing a bad job of keeping quiet, and Talia considered having a talk with the nurses and banning her from the room. 

It was week three of Stiles in his medically induced coma, and the entire pack was feeling antsy. Peter was released three days ago, they'd hoped Stiles would….do something. But the doctors say at the moment he's healing just fine, but they don't know what to do about his depleted Spark. He should have died, he was too young to handle such power without it killing him. But Stiles was stubborn, and Talia likes to think he's keeping himself alive just to spite the people who tried to kill them. She doesn't think she can take the thought of Stiles dying from this, after the doctor insisted that he was physically fine. 

When she sits at his bedside, she reads to him. The doctor said that talking to him while in this state would be good for him. But what do you talk about with a Stiles who can't reply. Talia remembers when she was a young mother, and Claudia was showing off her babbling baby. Stiles was a talker before he could even form words. He liked you to hold him so he was facing you, and then he'd babble and drool until he needed something. At which point his sweet, doe like eyes would water, and his cheeks would turn pink, and then red, as he geared himself up to cry. 

Derek and Laura were such easy babies, and at that point Cora was gearing up to be just as easy as her older siblings. Stiles was a revelation in noise and movement. If you took your eye off of him you'd lose him and there were plenty of times where Talia had to save the boy from falling lamps, sticking things where they didn't belong and just generally being a handful. 

The Stiles she sees in the hospital is so still. The only noise in the room is the beeping of his heart monitor, his steadily beating heart, and the rhythm of his breathing. Whenever Talia enters the room, she opens the blinds on the window. She likes the room to be bright and sunny and aired out, she knows that Stiles hates the smell of hospitals just as much as every other member of the house. Once the room is sufficiently sunny and as fresh as it can be, she pulls a chair up to his bedside, and then pulls out a book. 

She’d seen this book on his desk while she’d been cleaning in there. There was a page marked so one day she brought it with her and started reading to Stiles. She didn’t want to finish the book with him still…, so she’d read a chapter and then put it aside. Talia would then start exercising his legs and arms, so his muscles wouldn't atrophy. Melissa taught her how to do it, and afterwards Talia had cried. There was no explanation for it, she hadn’t even cried during the fire, while her husband burned to his death. She didn’t cry at the funeral her sister-in-law planned, and she didn’t cry during the run with the pack afterwards. Talia felt the absence of her husband bitterly, she felt useless as a wife and as a wolf. She hadn’t just lost her husband and mate, her children had lost their father, and that wrecked her most of all. 

Cora hadn’t spoken since the fire. But Talia knows she watched as Anna, Allegra, Jeremy, and Peter took what was left of his claws and cremated what was left of James. Derek hadn't spoken to anyone in the pack since They picked him up from the police station right after the fire. He wouldn't play with the younger children, from what Laura tells her won't even talk to Peter. The police have taken statements from the entire pack, but Derek refuses to tell them anything. Talia knows Derek know's more than he's letting on, but she doesn't know what to do.

There’s nothing left for her to do now. She’s met with the police and then with the FBI, now that he’s better Peter’s handling everything with their insurance, and with Talia in here everyday, Laura has taken over her Alpha duties. When Talia looked at her daughter, she could see the stress and responsibility wearing on her young face. She looked haggard, and an angry part of Talia wanted to show her daughter what haggard really looked like.

“Mom, the police told me that there were accomplices to the fire, some people that got away. We should protect the pack and leave. With Uncle Peter handling the insurance we could probably by another house.” Laura has been fighting Talia on this for days now. The girl’s gotten a taste of being the Alpha and now has taken it upon herself to order her mother around. Well Talia is still the real Alpha, and she’s already made up her mind on the matter.

“We’re staying here. We can’t make a move until everyone in the pack is safe, and Stiles isn’t ready yet.” 

“Mom! You heard the doctors, they have no idea what’s wrong with him and all the things they’ve done to figure it out has been inconclusive. We have to think of the members of the pack that are still alive, and frightened.” Laura insists.

Talia busies herself with washing Stiles. There had been a nurse, had been. Talia washes Stiles now, she uses the soap they have from home and brushes his hair. It’s so long now, if Stiles was himself he’d be begging for a buzz cut. When Laura showed no signs of going away, Talia sighed and resigned herself to having this conversation.

“Have you spoken to Deaton?” The old Druid must know something. He’s been around longer than Talia has, he has to have some information.

Laura sighed and ran a hand through her hair, “Are we sure we should be talking to him? The police said the fire wasn’t chemical or gas, it could have been done by magic.”

“Then you should talk to Deaton and have him look at the property, maybe he’ll have some insight.” Talia stares her daughter down as she answers. Laura glares back at her mother and for a moment Talia think’s she might challenge her. That’s not how power is usually passed down in their family, and she doesn’t think Laura has it in her to kill her. But if she challenges her, starts fracturing their already wounded pack bond, there’s every chance Laura could become an Alpha on her own. Then who would take over the Hale pack? 

Peter was much too fragile now, and he hadn’t always been the most morally conscious person to begin with. That made him a good Second, but a possibly awful Alpha. Jeremy had no interest in being an Alpha, and with James dead that just leaves the children. That is, if they don’t decide to leave the Hale Pack and join whatever pack Laura creates.

Talia flashes Alpha red eyes at her daughter, and growls her warning, “I know you’re feeling pressured, I know you’re scared, and I know that have been lax on my Alpha duties. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry you have to deal with so much of the bad side of this life so soon, but as your mother and your Alpha I’m gonna tell you one thing.” Talia stands, and looks down at her daughter.

“You need to suck it up.” Laura flinches, “No matter what happens you never leave your territory, you never make yourself even more vulnerable to attack. When you’re Alpha your job is not only the protector, not only the leader, not only the packmate. It’s all those things at once. Not once in this family have we ever left our territory after being attacked. And we’re not going to do it now.”

When Laura continues to look defiant, Talia grabs her by the throat with one claw tipped hand, “Have I made myself clear?” Laura glares, and pretends not to be utterly terrified by her mother’s anger.

“Have I, as your Alpha, made myself clear? I don’t want to anything else of us leaving ever again.” When Laura finally nods, Talia lets her go. They’re left standing inches from one another, glaring.

Laura eventually leaves, glaring with Beta gold eyes and teenage attitude all over. Talia returns to washing Stiles.


	19. Stay Alive (Reprise)

Through some maneuvering from Peter, and more than a little bit of grumbling from Laura, Derek finally goes to see Stiles. Everyone has visited him by now. His mom practically lives at the hospital. Derek is the only one who hasn’t visited. To be honest, the guilt felt overwhelming.

When he enters the hospital the nurses know him by sight as ‘one of those Hale’s’ and sends him, before he can even bring himself to say the words, right up to Stiles’ room. Two were’s from the Nevada pack stand guard outside. They smell Derek before he even turns the corner away from the elevator bank. When he approaches, they express their condolences for his father and wave him inside with little pomp.

Inside, the room is as well lit and airy as the tiny window allows. He sees his mother’s influence all over the hospital room from the knit blanket across Stiles’ still legs to the twinkle lights he’s used to seeing wrapped in Laura’s headboard. There’s a picture frame of the entire family from that one summer they all went to the water park together. There’s the twins, looking tiny and sunburned in Peter’s arms, Cora and Stiles match each other in Disney themed bathing suits. Behind them, Laura and his dad leaned against each other with his mom squashed between them smiling in a way he hasn’t seen in a long time.

They look happy, and whole. Nothing like the people he knows now. Peter is near feral most times, Allegra has had her hands full keeping her husband from going on a murder spree and taking care of two traumatized little girls. Cora had gone mute, Kat and Kieran wouldn’t come out of their room, and Aunt Anna had taken to weeping in the hotel kitchen when she thought no would would notice. Matty’s definitely noticed though, he’d caught the toddler crying when he noticed the tension in the room.

No one was happy anymore.

Derek approached Stiles’ bedside cautiously. He sat in the chair conveniently as close to his bed as possible and stared at the pale unmoving hand sitting within his grasp. He knew Stiles wouldn’t grip back, probably wouldn’t ever grip anything again. Derek debated with himself for some time before finally, haltingly, he reached for Stiles’ hand.

Touching Stiles changed nothing. He didn’t suddenly wake up and declare his hidden love for Derek. The sky didn’t fall. No nurses ran into the room to scold him for touching their patient. There was just the quiet ruffling of skin on fabric, and then Derek was holding Stiles’ hand. His skin was warm, a bit dry, and a dead weight in Derek’s palm. Derek squeezed tighter.

When he looked at Stiles, he didn’t see the same person he’d left behind when looking at different packs. It seemed like so long ago, but already the buzzcut Stiles sported with pride was gone. Replaced by thick brown hair that had an unfortunate cowlick that make the top of his head look like a wavy brown mop. His skin was pale, paler than usual, and the usual color that filled his cheeks was gone now. He looked sallow, he looked like a wilted flower.

“I’m sorry.” Derek whispers. He can’t even get the words out, he isn’t sure he even says anything cause no sounds leaves his lips. But he feels it in his heart. He has never felt guilt like this.

“I met Kate in New York. I was visiting the McCullen Pack and she was a local I kept running into.” he snorted, “Seems like it wasn’t fate at all actually. She probably planned all this from the beginning, I was just an easy target.” Derek shrugged to an empty room.

He can’t touch Stiles and look at him while he says this. But he knows he has to say this. Derek knows that he’s the reason that Stiles is in a coma. He’s the reason that sometimes Uncle Peter looks like he’s let his wolf take over completely. He knows he’s the reason that his dad is dead, and his mom is struggling to take care of the family, and the twins have night terrors of the fire. 

Derek knows all this and he knows he has to tell Stiles everything because he has to say it just once, and he’s ruined enough lives at this point. Maybe, if he can say it to Stiles, he can finally answer all the questions his mom and the FBI keep asking him.

Derek starts again, “I was coming home, when I heard you were gonna travel with Dr. Deaton. The same day mom told me Kate found me again, this time at the library. She was convenient and I felt like my whole world had ended so I latched on to her.” A lump grew in his throat and he found the next words very difficult to say.

“I told her everything. Not about you of course, I don’t think I could bring myself to talk about you at that point. I told her about the house and our family, all the things we did to protect ourselves. She knew I was a were’, and I never even questioned how she knew. I gave her everything because she showed affection and I conned myself into believing she loved me.” 

Derek stares at the tiled floor, he can’t bring himself to look at Stiles. He doesn’t want the memory of Stiles laying still on this bed to haunt him for the rest of his life. Maybe it will, maybe he deserves it.

There’s a slight stutter in Stiles’ breathing, before it once again evens out. 

He definitely deserves it.

“I don’t know what to do, Stiles. Dad’s gone and everything's awful. Aunt Anna and Uncle Jeremy are talking about moving, Aunt Allegra is losing it trying to reign in Uncle Peter and take care of Ella and Emma.” Derek took a deep shuddering breath. He could feel tears behind his eyes and a gathering thickness in his throat. He won’t cry though, Derek hasn’t cried since the fire.

“Peter’s been killing.” the announcement sounds loud in the hospital room. It fits the mood though. The balloons that had arrived Stiles’ first days in the hospital have completely deflated and now lay flat in a large frame. The flowers, replaced twice a week, wilted in their vase. Lily of the valley. The room, barring the delightfully sunlight blasting through the small window near Stiles’ bedside, was bleak and morose and it made Derek feel less awful as he silently began to cry.

Things were bad and they were all his fault. He’d known, for as long as he’s known that Stiles is his True Mate, that he would wait as long as he could for his feelings to be returned. This was before his friendship with Scott, which was when he learned that Stiles gave his love to people so easily. This led to him then hating John Stilinski, for abandoning his son to go be a drunk in the Southwest. Because Stiles still loved John, and Stiles loved Scott probably the moment they became friends, but Stiles would never loved Derek.

Derek was the annoying older cousin who always tattletales, his attempts at being a provider and protector for his mate was met with scorn and anger. Stiles didn’t want a protector, although he certainly needed one, so everything Derek did just pushed him further and further away from Stiles’ love.

Running to a different pack, once he came to the realization that Stiles may never feel the same way about him, seemed like the best option. He loved Stiles, and he would only do what he could to make him happy, but he knows he couldn’t live his life watching Stiles grow old without him. Derek was selfish, he was not noble. He couldn’t sit by and watch someone else make his mate happy, protect him, and feed him when he gets distracted by his spellwork.

Leaving the only pack he’d ever known seemed like the most sensible reaction.

Of course now he knows that if he’d just stayed home and suffered, Kate would have never followed him back to Beacon Hills, his father would still be alive, his Uncle wouldn’t be going slowly feral, and Stiles would be up and about like a menace. Derek ruined the lives of his entire pack.

A sob broke out unbidden, and Derek squeezed Stiles’ hand as he tried to gather control of himself. He didn’t come here to cry, he came here to see Stiles.


	20. Fake Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2 chapters in a day, unheard of I know. But I need to end this soon and I refuse to leave this unfinished. Feel free to comment on any errors because there has been very little editing. I'm trying to pounce on my brief bit of motivation and inspiration while it's here.

Derek visits Stiles in between rebuilding the Hale house and the mandatory therapy sessions recommended by Dr. Deaton. The whole family was in them, although it was harder to get Peter and his mother to actually show up for their sessions. Things were in transition, they’d had their chance to mourn, and now they were ready to rebuild. 

He has to fight with Scott to get Stiles to himself, but Mrs. McCall seemed to understand what it meant to Derek to be with Stiles when he could. She made sure to only bring Scott in on her off days. Mostly though, the visiting had dwindled. The Nevada pack was now back on their territory. School had restarted and Talia gave none of the children, except Laura, permission to miss school.

Which is why when Stiles finally woke up, he was able to wander to the nurses’ desk on his floor and slur his way into getting new blankets, new pillows, and green jello. When Talia got the call she just about fainted from relief.

The kids had no qualms about running through the hospital and causing general havoc. The younger wolves, Kat and Kieran and Cora, managed to catch the ever so faint scent of Stiles in the mix of chemicals and medicine in the hospital. Ella and Emma clung to their mother, Peter followed behind obediently, Tali and Laura behind him with Matty cradled in Talia’s arms. Jeremy and Anna are downstairs parking the family cars.

 

Derek was silently having a panic attack in the bathroom near the gift shop. Last time he’d seen Stiles, he’d helped his mother with grooming him. While she bathed him, Derek cut his nails and shaved the patchy beard coming in on his cheeks. They decided to leave his hair alone, only going so far as to wash it and brush it away from his face. Derek liked that part the most.

It had been nice, in a morose way, to take care of Stiles the way he’d always wanted to. He read to him, when his mother had to go back to the hotel and be the pack Alpha. He spoke to him, filling him in on everything going on with the pack because he knows Stiles would have wanted to know. Derek had somehow managed to fall even harder, his wolf happy about being able to take care of his mate. 

But with Stiles awake he knows that all that is coming to an end. Stiles won’t tolerate Derek trying to take care of him, even if after four months in a coma he needed to be taken care of. Stiles will push Derek away, and the second he’s well enough he’ll probably go back to traveling with Deaton. He’ll leave Derek right where he left him the last time, pining like a fool.

 

Stiles has somehow managed, in the twenty minutes it took the Hale pack to get from the preserve to the hospital, to get every nurse on his floor under his wrapped around his little finger. His room is filled with little tchotchkes from the gift shop. There are balloons and vases filled with blooming flowers for as far as the eye can see. Someone even managed to rig the tv in the corner of the room to play cable cartoons, Stiles’ favorites of course.

Cora was the first to enter the room, her face breaking into a disbelieving smile. Stiles, too thin and too pale and too weak to lift his arm for too long, returned her smile almost tenfold. She flings herself at her cousin, forgetting in her excitement just how strong a werewolf is and just how weak a person coming out of a coma actually is. Stiles doesn’t care though, he just clings to his cousin and tries his hardest not to cry.

Cora does that for him, breaking down into hoarse sobs that rock her body and make Stiles ache. It takes her seconds to gather herself together and cut her crying off to the quick. When she pulls back to wipe her cheeks, Kat and Keiran burst into the room. Following them, the rest of the Hale Pack except two. Without any warning Stiles has an arm full of Hale and he couldn’t be happier.

 

“God I never thought I miss your voice this much,” Kat chuckled from the foot of Stiles’ hospital bed. After the hugging and scent marking was over, Mrs. McCall made Talia promise that none of the pack would crowd Stiles. No one wants a repeat of the last time he woke up in the hospital. The only concession Melissa allowed was the younger kids piling up on Stiles’ bed.

Kat, Keiran, Ella, and Emma all sat in one way or another on Stiles’ hospital bed. Talia was at his bedside near his head, every now and then she’d run her nose over the crown of his head. Stiles found himself leaning into the touch deliberately. He’d missed his family so much, and wouldn’t take their affection lightly ever again.

The adults, plus Laura, either stood or sat around his bed. Matty, who looked so much bigger now Stiles’ heart ached knowing he’d missed all of it, was happily drooling over a teething toy shaped like a crescent moon. No one mentioned Derek’s absence, but they all assured him that he was in the hospital, probably in the bathroom. Stiles tried not to let his absence hurt as much as it did.

“I haven’t talked in four months, let me get it all out while I can. You guys will be saying, ‘Shut up, Stiles’ soon enough. Let me enjoy my audience kitten.” Kat didn’t even let the nickname bother her, she just flicked Stiles’ toe lightly though his blanket. He pretended to be mortally wounded for her benefit.

“Kids no fighting.” Talia intoned without any real heat, she was more focused on adjusting Stiles’ pillow and swiping his hair out of his face.

It felt wrong to talk about all the bad when finally something good was happening, but Stiles knew he couldn’t put off this conversation for ever. “Aunt Talia?” Stiles murmured hesitantly.

“Yes, pup?” 

“Can I speak to you alone?”

 

“Kate was a girl Derek was seeing while he was away. He hadn’t told anyone so when she showed up claiming to be his girlfriend we invited her in and that’s when things went wrong.” Talia looked out the window as she spoke, but she kept her hand in Stiles’ to let him know she was still talking to him, no matter how lost in her memories she got.

Apparently, Derek hadn’t even known Kate was coming over, hence why he and Laura were out picking Cora up from summer school. Kate attacked James first, throwing a molotov cocktail at him before escaping the house and completing the circle of ash that kept the Hales trapped in their own home.

The Hale house is, was, old. Built by the first Hale’s to come to Beacon Hills almost a hundred years ago, back when werewolves weren’t as easily accept in society as now. As a safety precaution, they’d built tunnels leading out of the cellar of the house in case a the house was ever attacked. No one knew about the tunnels, the children weren’t even allowed to play down there. 

Not that it stopped them, every Hale child and Stiles knew those tunnels like they knew their own name.

“Kate blocked off the tunnels. We don’t know how she knew they were there, but she’d manage to seal them so not even the children could get out. The cellar had been a last ditch effort, and now we couldn’t even get the children out of the house because of the blaze. Peter thought that going back the way we came would be best, but the fire…” Talia’s grip goes unbearably tight at the memory.

Stiles hates himself for bringing it up and making his aunt go through her pain all over again, but he has to know. He can’t go on with his life and not know how he almost lost the only family he had. A part of him can’t believe that Derek’s girlfriend was the one to do this. No one talked about Paige anymore after she and Derek broke up, and then Derek was traveling so any talk of his love life was pretty much moot. Plus, Derek had always been tight lipped about the girl's he was interested in. It didn’t surprise Stiles at all the no one knew about Kate.

How could someone do that to someone they were dating? How could someone set fire to a house with children in it, with a family in it?

“Kate is the daughter of Gerard Argent, a family of Hunter’s. And, apparently, the sister of Christopher Argent.” Talia sighed. “He’s been by more than once to check on you, he even helped us track down the people who helped Kate burn down the house. He’s been an integral part of helping us rebuild the house. I know why he’s helping, all that guilt, but it’s nice all the same. We still need to talk about the treaty breach, still need to draft out a new one. But there’s no bad blood between us.”

Stiles processed this information slowly. Allison’s aunt had tried to kill his family? He wondered if Scott knew that his girlfriend was related to a fucking psychopath.

 

When Stiles had gotten all he could from Talia, he asked if she could send Peter in next. His Uncle came in cowed, Allegra just behind him with huge bags under her eyes and lines in her formally youthful face. She looked all her actual age for once. There were even streaks of grey in the unkempt curls she’d lazily tied back into a bun. 

When Peter approached his bedside, his walk was like that of a predator. A leashed predator to be sure, but for once in his life Stiles felt actual fear when looking up at his uncle. There wasn’t the mischievous man who taught him how to curse in six languages and snuck him forbidden magic tomes when his Aunts weren’t looking. This was a wolf, a damaged wolf at that. He looked near feral.

But then he sat down, and with a deep breath the blue in his eyes was familiar again. Uncle Peter looked back at him with a world weary smile. His large hands held Allegra’s much smaller, calloused hand in his tightly. Like he was trying to physically draw strength and support from her though their palms. She rested her head against his shoulder and promptly went to sleep.

“How’s my favorite nephew,” Peter purred tiredly. 

Stiles felt tears gather in his eyes. His throat grew thick and that peculiar feeling precluding a sob built up in his chest until it almost hurt. Despite the burn in his eyes, Stiles refused to cry. 

“Tell me what happened to Uncle James, and then tell me that Kate Argent is dead.”


	21. Yes I'm changing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *unedited*

Deaton’s check up for his Spark required a bunch of shiny looking tools and foul smelling pastes and salves. Deaton, who been away on business for Peter, was now back and currently examining Stiles and his post coma Spark. Apparently when he’d been comatose they’d run some tests and things looked bleak. The doctors at the hospital were worried about the health of his Spark. Physically he’s fully recovered from the smoke inhalation and exhaustion, the only evidence left of the fire (aside from their half built house and nightmares) was his still depleted Spark.

“Give it to me straight, doc,” Stiles brought his fist up to his mouth and bit on one knuckle, “Am I gonna make it?” 

Deaton didn’t even crack a smile, not even a little wiggle in the corner of his mouth. Instead of a laugh he earned himself a pointed nudge from Laura. Stiles looked up at her angrily and nudged her back. She didn’t even move. He’d have had better luck pushing against a wall. Laura smirked at his attempt but remained focused on the doctor. Stiles made a face at her but she didn’t acknowledge it, even though he _knows_ she saw it.

“Stiles behave.” Talia whispers from his other side. Okay he had some idea of why _she_ was here. As his guardian and Alpha, coming to meetings like this was pretty much mandatory. 

Deaton goes into a dark room and when he comes back he carries with him to sheets of paper. There’s lines and markings in a language he’s not familiar with. When Deaton looks down at them, there’s an uncharacteristic frown marring the smooth expanse of his forehead. He squints at the papers, then squints at Stiles, and then squints at the papers.

“Is it cancer? You gotta let me know if it’s cancer right? That’s like a law or something.” Stiles rambles into the tense silence.

Deaton ignores him to go to a cabinet and rifle around before pulling out a stethoscope unlike anything he’s ever seen before. The part that’s supposed to lay on your heart was at least the size of a softball and pressed into a squat cylinder. It was at least three inches thick and looked like it was made from something from the forest. Like a rock and some moss and a bit of bark was pressed together to form this...thing. When Deaton began to approach him with it, Stiles found himself leaning into the safety of Talia at his side.

“What the hell is that?” Stiles exclaims. His minor bit of profanity earns him a stern look from Talia that promises a lecture on the car ride home, and a chuckle badly disguised as a cough from Laura. He glares at her, he glares at the weird stethoscope, and he glares at Deaton as he comes ever closer to actually touching him with it.

“This,” Deaton begins patiently, “Is to monitor your Spark. It’s dangerously depleted, and I’m unsure if there’s anyway to replenish it aside from a human sacrifice.” Deatons words hit Stiles heavy. He reaches for Talia’s hand, she allows him to squeeze it in fear.

“Will I still be able to do magic?” Stiles asks hesitantly. 

He’s not an idiot, he’s known something’s felt off about that core of heat inside him since he’d woken up. He’d attributed it to his anxiety with hospitals and residual fear and adrenaline from the fire. But it’s been a month since he’s left the hospital, and he can’t even produce a puff of smoke, let alone actually conjure. Whenever he tries he feels like he’s sucking on a straw sitting in an empty bottle. 

Deaton nods for him to take off his shirt so that he may press the magic stethoscope against his chest. It’s oddly warm, and when it presses against his skin it settles immediately. Settling then turns to burrowing and next thing Stiles knows he’s watching a thick cylinder of forest stuff painlessly slip into his chest. He can’t even feel it, at first, until he feels the nudging. A poking and prodding at his center that borders on invasive.

When Stiles opens eyes he hadn’t even realized he closed, it was to see Deaton concentrating so hard he had sweat forming on his head. Every now and then the pressure would change, the prodding would lessen, then it became forceful. It started to hurt and Stiles felt himself flinching away. Deaton retracts the stethoscope quickly, and with a grim face he turns his back on Talia, Stiles, and Laura.

“Alpha Hale if you’d step into my office I’d like to discuss your options going for Stiles going forward.” he walks into his office without looking at any of them, leaving the stunned Hale pack to share a stunned look.

Talia recovered first and made to follow Deaton into his office. Stiles frowned and yanked on her hand to make her stay, “I deserve to be in there, it’s my Spark. I have a right to know.” 

Talia gave him a tired smile before reaching up to push his hair back away from his face. It was still so long from his time in the hospital. He tries to duck her grasp so she grabs his chin instead. Stiles, now caught between Talia’s thumb and index finger, glares impetuously.

“I deserve to be in there.” He puts as much authority into his voice as he can, which is a surprising amount for his age. Talia kisses his forehead.

“Laura, take Stiles to the car, I’ll only be a minute.” Talia turns her back on Stiles’ comically outraged face, he honestly can’t believe she really left him out here like this, and follows Deaton into his office. She closes the door behind her.

Stiles almost jumps off the examination table and storms the office, the only thing holding him back is Laura’s gentle hand holding him in his seat.

“Sit down doofus and try to be quiet.” She orders. Laura’s always been bossy, but ever since going to college and playing Alpha while Talia took care of him in the hospital, she seemed to have really upped the bossiness to an unbearable degree.

“Why aren’t you on my side? Isn’t it like, against the law to keep a diagnosis from the patient? What if I’m dying?” Okay yeah Stiles was being dramatic, he’s a teenager let him be. He spent four months bedridden while his family had to pick up the pieces of their life without him. Can no one blame him for feeling a little left out?

Laura rolls her eyes, something she does often know that she thinks she’s so grown, “Hello,” She waves at her ears, “Werewolf.” 

Stiles allows himself exactly three seconds to wallow in his embarrassment before he leans as close to Laura as possible, “So what are they saying?” 

She gives him an annoyed look, “You know I don’t know. It’s almost as if someone is making it hard for me to hear.”

Stiles takes the hint for what it is and quiets down. He gets off the examination table carefully and puts his shirt back on. There’s no reason for him to still be shirtless and sit on the only table in the world where his feet don’t touch the ground. It’s bad enough he has everyone fawning over him still.

Laura listens and gives Stiles no indication he’s needed for anything aside from standing around uselessly so he begins to snoop. In one of Deaton’s file cabinets he finds a wind up wolf mid-strike. It’s back legs are on hinges, no doubt to shoot the little creature forward once wound up. It’s fur was a sweet heather grey that Stiles had no doubt would be soft as sin in real life. He wanted to wind it up and watch it do its thing, but something told him it was in Deaton’s cabinet for a reason and the family had had enough excitement for one year.

He puts it back just in time too, Deaton and Talia leave the office, Talia now holding a thick packet of papers and Deaton without his lab coat.

“Stiles geeze can you not behave yourself when I leave you alone for five minutes?” Talia doesn’t even have it in her to sound exasperated. She mostly sounds tired, resigned. With a wave she has Laura and Stiles following her out of the Vet’s office and into the outdoor parking lot. Deaton follows them out and locks up as they get into one of the families rental cars. Stiles is burning with the need to ask what went down in there, but something about the energy Talia, and now Laura, have started putting off, he’d say being quiet would be best.

The three of them drive in total silence back to the hotel the family is still staying at. Stiles hates it here, the whole pack does. The only upside is that they mostly spend nights in the same room, turning bedtime into a sort of sleepover. This time of day sees the younger Hales in therapy, and the adults over at the house rebuilding. Talia drops Laura and Stiles off at the front before she goes off to find a place to park the car.

Finally alone, Stiles turns to Laura expectantly, “Well? What did they say?”

Laura shushes him and watches her mom's car retreating further into the parking lot, once she deems Talia far away enough she turns back to Stiles. He’s still staring at her, waiting for her to tell him his fate, she seems almost startled to find him looking at her.

“Why don’t we go inside first?” Laura presses her hand against Stiles’ back and leads him inside before he can even say anything. When he opens his mouth, smart remark locked and loaded on the edge of his tongue, she pushes him to move even faster.

“Let’s save the talk for when we’re in the room.” Stiles let himself be led, not that he had any choice. When they entered the room Laura turned to him and gripped his shoulders tightly.

“You know this is a lot of buildup and if it turns out I’m dying I just might kill you for the suspense.” Stiles blurts. Laura rolls her eyes and fixes him with a sarcastic glare.

“Do you think Mom and Deaton would have hidden the fact that you’re dying from you?” Stiles tries to shrug her hands off his shoulders.

“Look will you tell me or not cause this is a lot-”

 

“Okay!” Laura shouts. She lets Stiles go to run a hand through her hair. She turns away from him, then turns back, opens her mouth, and then shuts it to gnaw at her bottom lip. Just when Stiles thinks she’s finally about to start, she stops herself and looks all torn.

“Spill it!” Stiles yells

“Your Spark is dead!” Laura yells back.

Stiles feels like time has lurched on without him, while stands stuck in the moments just after Laura’s declaration. Without thought, he wanders further into the room and stands before the sliding glass doors leading to terrace. Laura inches no closer but Stiles can still hear her loud and clear when she adds, “Deaton wanted Mom to consider giving you the bite.”


	22. Praying

When the rest of the Hale pack returned to the hotel, Stiles received many visitors after he set up shop on the terrace. He was one part meditating because Deaton had recommended it, along with Adderal since the meds will no longer affect his magic, and one part trying to stave off the panic attack he could feel creeping on every time he thought about the burned out center of his chest.

Laura was the first to approach, she gave him water and a snack and said something resembling, “I’m sorry.” He couldn’t tell if she was apologizing for being her usual bossy self or for his...loss. His scent soured seconds before Stiles even noticed his mood had changed. Before Laura could apologize again and, honestly, make him feel worse, Talia called her inside to watch Matty while she went to pick up dinner.

Dinner arrived, and the whole Pack sat outside to eat with him. He picked at his plate because if he didn’t everyone stared at him. Kat talked about the start of the new semester, her teachers, the new boy she’d decided she wants to be hers. Kieran is next to her, quiet, but the purple around his eyes seems lighter, and Stiles can see actual food making it off his plate and into his mouth. 

When dinner ends Anna and Jeremy go into the room so Anna can have a nap before they go back to their room. She takes Matty and Kieran tags along. Not much later you can hear Anna’s trilling snores and Matty’s baby giggle coming from the bed. That triggers a sort of signal for everyone else. Peter shifts so that he can go run the Preserve with Laura right on his heels. Allegra gathers the twins up for bath time while Kat and Cora race one another inside to take control of the remote for the night.

Stiles never actually sees Talia leave. One minutes she’s behind him, a warmth at his back in the cool air, and then gone. This leaves just him and Derek, staring at the reflection of the hotel’s pool not too far off. The night is still, and his belly is full. Despite the beginning of his day, Stiles feels actually content. Then he looks over at Derek.

Derek, the only failwolf Stiles knows. His eyebrows are doing some complicated gymnastics. Judging by the tightening of his jaw he’s also grinding his teeth. Deciding that he might as well deal with whatever’s making Derek more complicated than usual now, Stiles physically and mentally moves out of comfort mode.

“Spill Derbear.” Stiles drawls. Derek snarls in reaction, growling even more when all Stiles does is snicker at him.

“Come on buddy I’ve seen you in wolf form after eating a bee, no amount of snarling can _not_ make you the Bear in the Big Blue House. Your ferocity is over dude.” Stiles chuckles even more, and something Derek’s shoulders relax a little.

“I just wanted to know what happened with Deaton today.” Derek mumbles. His back is facing Stiles and he turns to look over his shoulder because he’s a goob who can't sit in a chair correctly. Stiles wants to call him on it, teasing Derek was miles more appealing than dealing with what went on at Deaton’s today. Only the light reflecting off the pool hits that fragment of green in Derek’s irises and Stiles finds speech really hard all of a sudden.

Derek, oblivious to the fact that his eyes have rendered Stiles literally speechless begins to speak again, “Mom seemed really tense, and your emotions were a mess. The pack was really worried that something had gone wrong.”

“Why because it’s me and when it happens to me something always has to go wrong?” The words snap out of his mouth before Stiles can even really think about what he’s saying. 

“Where would you even get that?” Derek asks. He seems to have decided he wants to fight, and is fully turned to stare at Stiles with hazel honey eyes and confused brows.

Stiles tries not to stare. “Oh please. The whole pack knows I’m a walking magnet for trouble and bullshittery. Everything I touch dies.”

Derek squints at Stiles like he’s far away. And maybe he is, Stiles feels like he is. He feels alone. And not lonely. Stiles has felt that before. But loneliness isn’t the emptiness in his core, isn’t the question mark behind his last name. People in town don’t even call him Stilinski anymore. He’s one of the Hale kids. Not that Stiles knows if he can lay claim to that name anymore. His dad basically left him on Talia’s doorstep, and then stood him up for a dinner he didn’t even want. If that doesn’t say you’re-my-bastard-child-I-refuse-to-acknowledge then you can punch Stiles in the face.

His mom is gone along with the only actual connection he had with her. Stiles knows nothing about her family except they used to live in town and died when she graduated high school. Not a lot to start and investigation on. But he had his Spark, the same flame that was lit within his mother. That was his connection to her. 

Well, it was.

“Are you stupid?” Derek stalked from his seat over to where Stiles was lazing on one of the recliners. He gave Stiles’ chest a harsh poke, “You saved the lives of our entire family! After I led danger to them!”

“Yeah but Uncle James died and Uncle Peter has a part of him missing.” Stiles counters hotly. Derek glares so Stiles stands up, “Don’t try to deny it, you _know_ he hasn’t been the same.”

“That’s not your fault. If you hadn’t gotten there who know’s what would have happened. Our entire family could have died,” Derek’s eyes soften, “We could have lost everything.”

The mood changes the same time the automatic lawn lights come on. Derek’s skin turns golden in the dim light, his eyes seem depthless when they stare down at Stiles. “Your Spark isn’t your only connection to your mom Stiles. And just because your dad isn’t here now doesn’t mean he doesn’t think of you, and still love you. These…. things, you see as problems are things affecting you, not caused by you.”

Stiles sets his chin, “How would you know?” 

Derek offers an imitation of a smile, “Trust me when I say that I’m experienced with crippling guilt and self flagellation.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose. He has to say that for possibly the first time in his life he was at a genuine loss for words. What could he say? What could one possibly say to the fact that Derek’s been spending who knows how long racked with guilt. Kate wasn’t his fault, she would have tried to kill any were’ family if she managed to get close enough. Derek is as much a victim as the rest of them, probably even more so. For Derek to so easily give away family secrets he must have really loved her. 

Just the thought makes his mouth get uncomfortably dry.

“Nice vocabulary word,” Is what he eventually says. The quiet had begun to get to him and he figured if he started being annoying Derek would leave.

Derek rolled his eyes, “Just promise me you won’t forget that nothing that’s happened to you in your life is your fault. Promise me you know that.”

“How can I promise to know something? What if I forget? What if I get amnesia from one of Cora’s wicked arm punches? Will I then be breaking a promise? Will I even remember that I made this so called ‘promise’? I mean if you think about it-”

“You know what I’m thinking about?” Derek growls.

“Probably something unpleasant but go on.”

Derek opens his mouth to start talking, and then seems to realize what Stiles said and his glare intensifies, “Why do you make this so hard for me?”

“Why do you keep trying?” 

Derek sighs, “Because I care about you.” He looks down at his hands, “Because out of everyone in the house I’m still the only one you won’t let in.”

This moment feels heavy, Stiles thinks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He says, “I treat you just like everybody else.”

Derek rolls his eyes, but his eyes are soft, and his brow relaxed. It makes him look younger, which sounds insane because Stiles hadn’t even noticed that Derek had grown up. To Stiles Derek had always been that older cousin he always tended to drift towards during playtime. As he got older he became the guy who always busted his schemes and got him in trouble. In other words he became an enemy of sorts. Without even realizing it Stiles had put Derek in a box and dismissed any shot at ever getting to know who he was becoming.

So Stiles takes a mental step back, and takes a good long look at the guy he’s always thought of as an annoying cousin. For one he’s a tall and broad, but that was a werewolf thing Stiles was used to. He knew not to be envious, but for some reason Stiles couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the tight stretch of fabric across Derek’s shoulders. His biceps were small but defined. In the back of his mind the word basketball bounces around.

It’s hard to really conceptualize it but he’s pretty sure that Derek’s an athlete. Which isn’t something Stiles ever thought would cause his mind to stutter and stop like a record with a scratch. He liked girls like Lydia. Who were pretty and smart and so far out of his league they were playing different sports. In a way Derek was like opposite Lydia. He was athletic and...and tall. Where Lydia was small and slight, Derek had all the commanding power of a werewolf within him. 

Then again Derek really not into ascribing to that super macho alpha werewolf stereotype. If Stiles was being honest he’d say that Derek is quiet. Derek is introspective and thoughtful and caring. On one hand yes, Derek is a major party pooper, but on the other he has gotten Stiles out of a few binds. Talked to him and tried to comfort him even when he desperately wanted to be alone.

Stiles takes all of this, the bullet list he’s composed of Derek’s attributes, and he applies it to the person he sees in front of him. He looks in Derek’s eyes and sees not just the mixture of hazel and green, but the world weariness of a survivor. There’s the laugh lines that always come out when he smiles. There’s a bit of cilantro from dinner, sticking onto his upper lip, that Stiles knows he would be furious with if he knew about its existence.

Stiles knew Derek hated to look like a fool.

“Do you know what you’re gonna do now?” Derek says.

Stiles shrugs, the tone of the conversation has changed yet again. But it feels lazy, almost languid. He sits back in the lounge, then stares at Derek until he rolls his eyes and sits on the lounge too. 

“I don’t know, actually. Laura says Deaton suggested the bite to your mom.” Stiles’ confession has Derek tensing next to him. So Stiles forces a laugh, and nudges Derek with his elbow.

“Chill doofus I’m not gonna let her do it.” He hadn’t actually known that’s what he’d decided until he said it. But it feels right. His mom always told him that if you make a decision, make decisions you know you won’t regret. Stiles has never wanted the bite, and even the possibility of getting his magic back or becoming a werewolf isn’t enough to make him want it.

At his side Derek relaxes, but he still stares at Stiles worriedly, “But what about your magic.”

Stiles smiles, “I’ll find a way. Before the fire Deaton was teaching me about the different ways a druid or witch can channel magic. My Spark was my magic, now I just have to find new ways to channel it.”

Derek accepts Stiles’ information without any change in his physical demeanor. From inside, they hear a whoop of joy as Laura and Peter return to the hotel room with pizza from the family's favorite pizza place. Derek and Stiles chuckle at the sound of their family reacting to the treat that is pizza. Derek traps Stiles with the warmth of his gaze and with a shy smile nods towards the glass doors leading inside.

“Wanna head in before those animals devour it all?”

Stiles shakes his head in horror. He can hear the sounds of bickering and growling already, “Knowing Peter he has another box stashed somewhere, wanna go check his car?”

Derek actually looked shocked at Stiles’ request. This moment out on the terrace is probably the most time they’ve talked to one another in two years. It’s entirely uncharacteristic of Stiles to try to extend the time they spend together. Stiles doesn’t given anything away, carefully hiding his thoughts behind a poker face even Peter can’t see through.

Instinctively he draws on his magic to hide his scent a bit only for him to feel that aching empty feeling grow stronger. Stiles cringes. If Derek notices, he doesn’t say anything. He just nods towards the gate out of their terrace area. There’s a stone path in the grass that should lead them back towards the main hotel. They take the path together, bumping shoulders and comfortably quiet. 

Stiles feels content and, oddly, happy that Derek is there with him in that moment. Maybe it's the thought of the second dinner, or maybe it's the relief that out of anyone he could have said those things in front of, Derek was absolutely the perfect choice. He didn’t push him to talk about it, he just said his piece and then moved on. 

Stiles had definitely noticed how easily Derek let him lead the conversation back there. Maybe Stiles had been a bit harder on him than the rest of the family. Especially that period there where he wasn’t even talk to the guy. Stiles can honestly say that maybe he missed the Derek who could be his friend, not just his annoying cousin. Scotty will always be like a brother to him, and the rest of the family has always been there to support him. But Stiles has never had anyone who was just a friend when he needed it.

“Remember when we decided to be friends for the first time since diapers?” Stiles says.

Derek takes a moment to think before nodding, “Yeah. You made me touch your spit damp palm. It was…” he trails off.

“Legendary?”

“Unpleasant.”

“Oh.” Stiles’ shoulders drop.

They walk in silence until they reach the lobby leading to the parking lot. Peter’s rental car was as forgettable as the rest of the cars currently situated in the lot. Derek tapped his nose and began leading them towards the very far right of the huge parking lot.

“Why do you ask?” Derek asks softly. They’ve been walking in silence for almost five minutes. Stiles jumps at the chance to break it.

“I was thinking we could try to-again. I mean try to be friends.” His words trip over themselves in his haste to get it all out at once, “Our last try kinda ended on a sour note when you were looking at other packs.”

Derek shot him a look, “You decided to stop talking to me Stiles.”

 

Stiles grimaced, “Yeah. I did.” He sighs, “That was wrong, and I’m sorry. I just got so angry thinking you were leaving the pack. I guess it brought up all my issues with my dad and I just…” He lowers his head.

“I’m sorry too,” Derek mumbles.

Stiles snorts and rolls his eyes, “Dude you really don’t have to be. I was just being a stupid kid and you were just trying to be an adult I guess.”

Derek nodded, “I’m apologizing for ever making you believe that I’d leave you even if I went to another pack.”

Stiles tries not to let Derek’s words affect him, but for the rest of the night he can’t get that warm glowy feeling in his chest to go away.


	23. Breakthrough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This journey has been amazing, filled with starts and stops and moments of doubt. But here we are, the end. Everyone who's read this has been amazing and I thank you all for sticking with me through it all.

Friendship between Derek and Stiles turns out to be a...endearing thing. Endearing being the only word the whole family could agree to call the “friendship” between Derek and Stiles. Even Scott has to admit that he finds the whole thing a bit hard to swallow, and Scott’s worst opinion of people extends to calling them “Not a cool dude.”

Scott and Melissa had practically moved into the slowly coming together Hale house. Once Peter had gotten the roof on the place the entire family decided that it was livable again and moved back in. Instead of doing a rebuild of the former house they were working on adding rooms. But only the first two floors of the house could be called “liveable”, so every night was like one big pack slumber party. Complete with puppy piles and movie marathons like they used to when he, Derek, Laura, and Cora were all little.

Talia liked to insist that this was their way of restoring safety to the pack, but Stiles just believed it was all them being a family again. The fire had taken everything from them but each other, coming back home was just the nudge they needed to breath easy again.

Moving back into the house once again put them all in close quarters again, which meant everyone knew everything about everything. Which is why everyone noticed the second it happened when Derek and Stiles started being nice to one another. No one knew of their pact to try and become friends again. Well, Scott knew because Stiles didn’t keep secrets from Scott. But Melissa and the rest of the pack were left speechless when Stiles approached Derek their first morning back in the house.

Melissa was serving breakfast, she’d taken over cooking duties once she realized that no one in the house really knew how to feed themselves beyond putting food in the microwave. That morning the pack feasted on pancakes and plates piled high with canadian bacon, sausage, and eggs. For Matty, who at two had decided he wanted to feed himself, Melissa made him a bowl of cream of wheat with bits of sausage in it. 

“I love your mom, dude.” Stiles spoke around the two sausages he had in his cheeks and a forkful of the fluffiest pancakes he’d ever eaten. Next to him Scott was on his second plate of pancakes and was too busy chugging orange juice to do more than nod his agreement.

“You guys this is just a simple breakfast, you all act as if I’ve done something special.” Melissa blushed from one end of the living room they all communed in. It was bigger than their old living room, large enough for them all to fit without having to crawl over one another. The pack sat in a tight circle on the floor anyway.

“We haven't had a home cooked meal in ages.” Anna groaned around a mouthful of bacon.  
“And with what we’re doing today we’re going to need the fuel.” Jeremy, who Stiles had seen steal both his wife’s and Kieran's sausage, spoke up from behind her.

“What’s the plan for today Jer, do think we could finish that third floor anytime soon?” Talia asks. She’s sitting on one of the outer edges of the room. Closer to the large archway leading to foyer and the wall of glassless windows. At her side, Melissa was sneaking pancakes and pieces of bacon onto Talia’s practically untouched plate.

Jeremy shrugged and then paused to swallow what was in his mouth before he spoke. “Deaton says we should start working on the wards since we’re living here during construction. I wanted to get another crack at the plumbing before days end. Peter says he’ll handle wiring.”

“If you want that third floor done Tal you're gonna have to hire some help. Anna and I are already stretched thin on magic. We can’t work on protections and help with construction.” Allegra speaks up from the twin blanket she had draped over her. Ella and Emma, both nine and too old to be laying all over their mother, licked syrup sticky fingers while staring at Peter. 

Peter was outside the house running lazily around the perimeter. A little farther out Laura was running the same path. Perimeter runs had become the norm since the fire. They all did them, but Peter and Laura volunteered to go on them the most. Peter and Allegra hardly let the twins out of their sight, even now in the safety of their home. Luckily it didn’t take much to take care of the twins since the girls haven’t let go of their parents since Peter left the hospital.

Talia and the adults talk about their plans for the day until Peter and Laura return. As one they all stand and get ready to start on their duties for the day. Jeremy, Kat, and Cora were all handling the construction of the second floor. While Jeremy handled the plumbing, Kat and Cora would check to make sure there were no leaks. They were also installing all the second and first floor bathrooms today.

Peter was on his own with the wiring, while his wife and Anna would be outside the house all day warding their territory. Hale Lands came with wards already, wards older than every person in the house, probably older than the people still alive in town. So their work consisted of strengthening old wards and adding new ones. 

If Stiles had his Spark he’d be going with them to ward the house. Instead his job was rugrat duty. He was now in charge of the twins, now nine but still subdued after the fire, Kieran, who was eleven and resented being asked to stay with the younger kids, and Matty who didn’t care who watched him as long as he was left alone to play in his pen with his blocks.

Melissa left while everyone went to do his or her job, she had a shift at the hospital the family’s hoping will end early so she could cook dinner. Laura and Talia are off on another treaty meeting with the Argents. Stiles wasn’t really told anything but he guessed the only reason Peter wasn’t going as was his right as Second, was because Peter just didn’t have the self control not to kill every Argent he sees. The adults try to play it off as grief from losing his brother in-law, but Stiles knew that a fire of revenge burned within his uncle. Quite possibly the only thing keeping him from going off on a killing spree anyway was his wife, children, and, maybe to a lesser extent, the pack.

Stiles and Peter talk a lot, mostly about what they’d do if they ever saw Kate Argent again. 

By the time the living room had cleared out, the only people left were Derek, Stiles, the twins, Kieran, and Matty. Stiles looked at Derek curiously, he hadn’t expected him to stay behind. Usually Derek worked with Jeremy and the girls. He’d been there for most of the construction of the foundation and first floor. Stiles had sort of expected that trend to continue.

“I haven’t...spent much time with Matty and the twins since the fire. I wanted…” Derek looks down at his feet, “I wanted to help you if I could.”

He looks nervous, Stiles thought, and embarrassed. “Sure, but you’re on duty with Kier, he looks grumpy today.” Kieran glared at him, so Stiles stuck his tongue out. Kieran Beta Shifted and crossed his eyes with a growl, which ended the whole competition because _seriously_. He looked ridiculous.

Kieran smiled in triumph, what he won Stiles doesn’t know, and returned to playing with Matty on the floor. The twins rolled their eyes, and in a blink and with a hot, sweet, damp smell in the air, disappeared. They were now down to two kids, and Kieran was right he could pretty much take care of himself. Stiles felt really redundant all of a sudden.

“Wanna just sit and chat? Kieran’s always been really good with Matty.” Stiles plopped down onto a pile of blankets and pillows. When he looked up at Derek for an answer, he had the tiniest of smiles on his face and just the barest tinges of red in his cheeks.

The satisfaction Stiles felt for being the reason Derek was _kinda_ _smiling_ and _kinda_ blushing was almost primal. He covered the urge he felt to brush his fingers against Derek's undoubtedly hot cheeks by burrowing into the covers.

“Mom’s started talking about college again, for Laura and I.” Derek says. 

Talia’s been getting on a lot of the pack lately, trying to get us back on track after the fire. Currently the only kids enrolled in school is Stiles, Cora, and Kat. Derek and Laura stay with the pack more often than not, rebuilding the house and working out the Argent Treaty. When the twins were diagnosed with PTSD Allegra pulled them out of school and started homeschooling them. Kieran had graduated elementary school just before the fire, and all his records had burned up with the house. Anna and Jeremy hadn’t found the time to go to city hall for new copy. 

“Well what do you want to do?” Stiles asked. Derek took a moment to consider his answer.

“I think I’d like to stay close to pack for now, I don’t think I’m ready for school and college just yet.” Derek confided. 

Stiles nodded, “I get it. You know if you tell her you’re not ready she might let you take a gap year for a while.” 

Derek shrugged, “I’m not the same person I was before the fire. All the dreams I had…” He shook his head and Stiles nodded. Derek didn’t need to finish the thought because Stiles understood it immensely. 

Before the fire, Stiles couldn’t wait to be his families emissary, he couldn’t wait to have a bigger role in the pack. The fire has only solidified that need, only know he no longer had the magic to back it up. 

Derek and Stiles stayed on the pallet talking until the savory smells of lunch began wafting from their half finished kitchen. Not long after the pack came into the kitchen from their various jobs, ate the hot lunch Melissa prepared, then went back to their jobs. Anna took over kid duty, so Derek and Stiles decided to take a walk around the property. They told the family they were doing a perimeter run, but judging from the knowing looks on the faces of all the adults no one believed them one bit. 

Stiles tried not to let himself care, even as he pulled Derek from the usual path around Hale property, and focused instead on the feel of Derek’s warm smooth palm. He walked until he was sure no one from the pack would be able to hear them, and then walked even farther until he reached the nemeton. 

“Stiles…” Derek said warily. His eyes glowed cold blue, such a change from the gold Stiles had grown up with. 

When Stiles drew even closer to the nemeton Derek tried to hang back, “No Derek, it’s fine. It’s safe, she’s ready now.” 

Stiles pulled Derek closer, directing him to follow his footsteps carefully between the thick gnarled roots. When the reached the body of the huge tree, the hum of loving magic coming off of it made Stiles’ skin feel sunkissed and bubbly. Like his skin was made of soap bubbles. Derek’s grip grew tighter and the sharp kiss of his claws drew blood on the back of Stiles’ hands. But he didn’t back away, he didn’t let go of Stiles. 

Stiles, now as close to the tree as he’s ever been. He pressed his forehead against the bark and he felt welcomed. He felt a warmth reach inside and and heal all the parts of him the doctors couldn’t reach. He felt a presences, a fiery heat that felt like his mother. 

“Stiles?” Derek, still holding his hand, is a lot less wary now. He steps closer to Stiles and closes the distance. 

“I knew this would work.” Stiles whispers. 

“What? What are you talking about?” 

Stiles laughs and the look on Derek’s face is nothing short of ludicrous. Taking pity on the guy, Stiles grasps him by the shoulders and musters up all the courage he has and jolts forward to kiss Derek’s surprisingly stubbly cheek. The werewolf grows so still Stiles wonders if he’s stopped breathing. The he begins to wonder if his werewolf biology would allow him to stop breathing. 

“Okay I was confused before but now I am completely lost.” Derek breathes out. His cheeks are pink and he still hasn’t let go of Stiles’ hand. 

“Okay to be fair I was like forty-five percent sure that would work.” Stiles admits with a breathless chuckle. 

_Derek shakes his head in disbelief. “What… was that?”_

__

__

Stiles brushes a hand down the trunk of the nemeton, “I always thought my connection to my mother was my magic, and after losing that piece of myself I expected to feel incomplete, or lost. Like I did after my dad…” Derek squeezes his hand when he gets quiet, silently giving him the strength he needed to go on. 

“Anyway enough of the sad stuff. I realized that as long as the nemeton was still around I still had a piece of my mother. And then after putting together a lot of really freaking obvious clues I realized that you were my True Mate and with your love and hopefully the help of the nemeton I could get my Spark back.” Stiles snaps his fingers as a test and a five inch burst of flame erupts from his finger tips. 

Derek looks red, and frankly murderous, “How long have you known?” 

“About the True Mate thing? I sort of figured it out after the Paige dinner disaster. But I didn’t really know what to think about it and I still hated you keep in mind.” 

Derek nodded but he still looked mortified, “So you know...and you’ve known for a while now." 

He looked so upset about it Stiles wanted to hug him, “If it makes you feel any better I was in denial about it, and I was angry at you for trying to leave the pack.” 

“I would have never left if I’d known you loved me back.” Derek declares, so fiercely Stiles wonders how long those words have been banging around in that head of his. 

“That’s the thing, I didn’t love you. I was….you were just my cousin. You were annoying and burdensome and sometimes I wished we weren’t mates.” Stiles says, “It wasn’t until my coma that I even thought of you as anything more than just one of my cousins.” 

Derek looks at Stiles through his lashes, suddenly bashful, “And now...how do you feel now?” 

"I’m not in love with you if that’s what you’re asking.” Stiles says bluntly. It’s better to be honest, Stiles knows. 

Derek looks like he’s been sucker punched and his grip loosens in Stiles’ hand. 

“But I could be,” Stiles starts softly, “If you give me time. If we can just stay friends for a little while longer I’m sure I’ll be there right with you.” 

Derek’s smile was soft and tentative and warmed the parts of Stiles the nemeton hadn’t quite reached yet. Chancing another cheek kiss, Stiles then led Derek away from the nemeton. They continued to hold hands, nothing about them being friends meant they couldn’t hold hands. Or sneak glances at one another. Or sneak kisses, chaste as they were, behind the bank of trees leading to the Hale back yard. 

Stiles could never figure out what lead his father to leave him here. The Hales weren’t even his biological family. But Stiles will never blame his father for his choice. He left him in a home of love and laughter. His father gave him the childhood his mother had probably always wanted for him. When Stiles thinks of what he could have missed out on, from scent tag in the forest to magic lessons with Deaton, Stiles knows he wouldn’t have changed a thing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Farewell from the Hale family, signed: Talia Hale, Peter Hale, Allegra Hale, Anna Hale-Borisova, Jeremy Borisova, Laura Hale, Derek Hale, Cora Hale, Emma and Ella Hale, Kat Hale-Borisova, Kieran Hale-Borisova, Matty Hale Borisova, Melissa McCall, Scott McCall, and Stiles Stilinski.


End file.
